Get a life

Bored housewife gets born
again in Shirley Valentine

NOT GOING ANYWHERE: Nicola Cavendish

By NEIL BOYCE

Liverpudlian playwright and musician Willy Russell gets the character of strong, blustery, working-class English women perfect.

Shirley Valentine (along with Educating Rita and Blood Brothers) made Russell an institution in England, and the two-act monologue paints a sharp picture of middle-aged Liverpool housewife Shirley as she goes through the routine of a dull day: working in the kitchen, making husband Joe’s dinner and literally talking to the paint (“Right, wall?”) as she wonders what happened to her life.

Russell’s friend Pauline Collins made the part famous in the West End, on Broadway, and in the 1989 film adaptation, so there has to be trepidation for any actor who would take on such a signature role. And while her English accent may meander a bit from north to south, Nicola Cavendish—in a revival of her Dora-award-winning role—slips into the role in the current Centaur production like a dishwashing glove.

Directed by Roy Surette, Cavendish revels in wicked looks and belly laughs at the wall/audience, describing her marriage as “like the Middle East. There is no solution: you just keep your head down and hope the cease-fire holds.”

Shirley’s got a spoiled visiting daughter, Millandra, and son Brian, a punk busker poet who composes angry little ditties like, “I ‘ate the fucking daffodils, I ‘ate the blue remembered hills.”

Of course, the snarky humour covers many disappointments in her life—if she were gone, she realizes, who would really miss her? “I used to be Shirley Valentine, what happened to her? Or is it...nothing happened?”

When her best friend wins a vacation for two to Corfu, the possibility of escape becomes real, as she leaves a note on the kitchen table reading “Gone to Greece, back in two weeks.”

It’s here that Russell gets to his main theme—repeated and reworded several times—the idea of an “unused” life, and how most of us die long before we’re dead. “Why are we given all of this life,” says Shirley, “when we don’t use it?”

Of the many beautiful moments in the production, one near the end is the most touching. Joe is about to arrive, thinking he’ll take her back home and to her senses. Passing a happy, tanned woman sitting under an umbrella by the sea, Joe doesn’t recognize his old wife Shirley (Bradshaw)—now, once again, Shirley Valentine. “You can’t run away from life,” he had told her. “I agree,” she replied. “And now that I’ve found some life, I have no intention of running away from it.”

Theatre Notes

Jeremy Hechtman takes on Tom Stoppard for MainLine’s The Real Inspector Hound. The play within a murder mystery play is full of “breaking the fourth wall” shenanigans and plenty of brilliant Stoppardian absurdity as two theatre critics in the audience become entangled in the onstage action. Roles are switched, layers of reality overlap at a bewildering pace and everything gets thrown into a cocked hat.

Once again this spring, the National Theatre School of Canada (NTS) will be travelling across the country looking for up-and-coming theatre artists in various programs for the 2009–2010 school year. Interested candidates can register online or download an application from ent-nts.ca. An application can be mailed to you by calling (514) 842-7954, or e-mailing info@ent-nts.ca. The deadline for applications is February 15, 2009. Auditions will take place between March and May, 2009.

SHIRLEY VALENTINE TO FEB. 22 AT
CENTAUR THEATRE (453 ST-FRANÇOISXAVIER),
(514) 288-3161.
THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND TO FEB.
14 AT MAINLINE (3997 ST-LAURENT),
(514) 849-3378