by AMY BARRATT

Martha Henry is a great actress, a national treasure, the first lady of Canadian theatre, etc. The Stratford grande dame has heard it all over the course of a career that has included many of the great women's roles in the English repertoire. Still, the question on everyone's mind at last week's opening of Rose, by Martin Sherman, was "Will she be believable as Jewish?"

Now, when it comes to Yiddishkeit, I'm no balmalocha (expert), but a large portion of the Saidye audience is, and by all indications, they were buying it. It took no more than a minute or two to get used to the accent Henry had chosen (more New Joisey than Old Country) and to get past her status as theatrical icon - then, you were alone with Rose.

More to the point, Henry is alone with Rose, alone on a nearly bare stage for, well, a long time. Perhaps cruelly, though I'm sure Henry agrees it's the right artistic decision, director Diana Leblanc has chosen to have the actress on stage as the audience enters the theatre, and to keep her there right through intermission, sitting shivah.

Rose, the character, is an 80-year-old who has lived through many of the last century's major events. Rose, the play, is a funny, smart, heartbreaking monologue describing and taking stock of that life, that century. At first, we don't know who she's mourning or why, but still we are happy to sit with her as she remembers, or fails to remember, or refuses to remember.

Henry's interpretation works so beautifully because of its subtlety. Nothing is overdone - not the accent, not the gestures, not the emotions. Guided by her trusted collaborator Leblanc, Henry nails the survivor's dark sense of humour. "If I were a Buddhist," Rose says, after relating a particularly devastating event, "this would give me points on account for the next life." Sherman, the playwright, knows when to pull back so that the horrors and sorrows of Rose's life are never made either sensationalistic or maudlin.

Beginning with a bedridden father, Rose always seems to be surrounded by sickly, ineffectual men - at 80, she has survived three husbands. She doesn't idealize her early years in a Ukrainian shtetl. "When you experience your first period and your first pogrom in the same month," she deadpans, "you can safely assume childhood is over." We learn about her war years in broad strokes only. This is not primarily a story about the camps, which Rose managed to avoid by hiding in the Warsaw sewers.

Sherman, probably best known for his play Bent, has created a three-dimensional character in Rose, who should not be seen as an iconic Jew any more than Henry needs to be made into an iconic Canadian. They are both flesh-and-blood women, which makes them far more interesting than any prototype. Go now.

Healthy stretch

English theatre is in a healthy stretch just now. The newly formed Muttertung Theatre Company (Alison Darcy, Kevin Kruchkywich and Rylan Wilkie) is presenting Neil Labute's BASH: Latterday Plays at the Théâtre Ste-Catherine until Feb. 26, while Brokered Body Lab's original dance-theatre piece, The Hope Machine, opens tonight, Feb. 17, at le Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec (615 Ste-Croix near du Collège metro).

Rose runs until Feb. 27 at the Saidye
(5170 Cote-Ste-Catherine, 739-7944), $31–$40

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