The Citizen, 1998-07-29, Page 19A flash back
In the musical comedy Hot Flashes now playing at the Blyth Festival's Garage Theatre,
rekindling a mid-life romance is anything but smooth sailing for Janet, left, played by Susan
Henley and Harry, played by David Gale, when Ally, their rebellious teenage daughter (Inga
Cadranel) has other plans. (Photo by Photo-Image)
Theatre review
`Flashes', a refreshing day at the beach
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THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1998. PAGE 19.
E ntertainment
Blyth celebrates
women at play
By Bonnie Gropp
Citizen staff
If you've ever been a menopausal
mother raising a teenager, the
father of a daughter, or a confused
14-year-old, Hot Flashes, now
appearing at Blyth's Garage The-
atre should seem a familiar story.
Written by Paul Ledoux and John
Roby, Hot Flashes tells the story of
mid-lifers Harry and Janet and their
troubled teen Ally. The couple has
travelled back to the place they
met, a summer resort in White
Point, NS., to try to rekindle the
romantic flame.
Harry, portrayed by a thoroughly
likeable David Gale (also choreog-
rapher) is a robotic businessman,
complete with passionless rational-
izations. His answers are verbose,
full of definition and empty of
emotion.
Susan Henley's Janet is a pas-
sionate woman, frustrated by her
remote husband and confused as to
what her purpose is. Empty nest,
boredom, and, yes, hot flashes are
symptoms from which she suffers.
The child in a 'Woman's body,
Ally, played almost believably by a
considerably older and very exotic-
looking Inga Cadranel, is, though a
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for
Sue Terpstra
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Friday, Aug. 7/98
Monkton Arena
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Tickets - 887-6401
handful for her aggrieved mom,
fairly typical. Sensing the change in
her parents' marriage and her moth-
er's seemingly critical view of her,
she finds herself in a 'catch 22',
reacting to her problems by being a
pain which inevitably leads to more
problems.
With its cozy cottage setting,
designed by Glenn Davidson and
its very real characters, Hot Flashes
is at times, witty, acerbic and
melancholy. With its commentary
on many familiar life issues, deliv-
ered in dialogue, song and dance, it
offers laughs at the expense of
some human sadness. For example,
complaints on dwindling sex-life
are given a comic bent through a
bluesy salute to the more prolific
lovemaking of the rabbit popula-
tion.
While some of the song's lyrics
are cliched and the dialogue at
times a trifle trite, the music is live-
ly, occasionally even lovely. And
its story is bound to strike a famil-
iar chord on some scale with the-
atre-goers.
A joint production of Blyth,
Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port
Dover and Bluewater Summer Fes-
tival in Kincardine, Hot Flashes is
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directed by David Ferry. With a
'sometimes, you just have to laugh'
approach, he finds the light touch
to even the sorriest aspects of love
gone wrong.
The intimate atmosphere of the
Garage Theatre is a perfect venue
for this production. Theatre-goers
are so close to. the action they feel
more like good friends invited
along on the vacation. Some in the
audience on the day this writer
attended could be heard extoling
sympathy to "poor Harry".
Good tunes (played wonderfully
by pianist/musical director Alan
Moon), people you'd like to get to
know and spend time with, accom-
panied by the sounds of the sea-
side makes Hot Flashes a
refreshing day at the beach.
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GEORGE CLOONEY,
JENNIFER LOPEZ
Even before Blyth Festival's
Anne Chislett became artistic
director, as one of Blyth's founders,
playwrights and friend, she was
always on the lookout for a perfect
Blyth play for that oh-so-hard to fill
slot in the season — the script that's
been done before somewhere else.
(Mounting all new plays in one
summer would mean the staff
having to work 25 hours a day
instead of the usual 24). "It's a
source of annoyance that other
theatres, which are all the time
filling the Canadian content of their
seasons with shows developed at
Blyth, rarely produce a new play
that Blyth would want to
programme," she said.
However when she saw Thirteen
Hands, premiered by Prairie
Theatre Exchange, Chislett knew
she had a perfect script to bring
home. "I know the women who
come to the Blyth Festival will
hoot at the wonderful scene where
the card players all fantasize about
leaving their husbands," she said.
"Actually, I think the men might
laugh too."
Thirteen Hands tells the story of
The Martha Circle, so named
because Margot Heatherington was
afraid to tell her Baptist husband
that she played cards. As one of the
characters says, "The thing was
she'd left it too late. It's one thing to
face up to a young. husband and get
your way. "It's something else to
sneak around for forty-three years."
In her introduction to the script,
Carol Shields writes "For many
years. I've been interested in the
lives of women, particularly those
lives that have gone unrecorded.
The last 20 or 30 years have seen,
in literature and in theatre, the
(partial) redemption of women
artists and activists. But one group
seems consistently overlooked:...
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the so called "blue rinse set", "the
bridge club biddies." There were
(are) thousands of these women,
millions in fact. I am reluctant to
believe their lives are wasted or
lost. Something important goes on
around a card table, a place where
many women have felt most
brilliantly alive!
The Winnipeg Free Press wrote
of Thirteen Hands, "Shields must
be congratulated for bringing home
a cleverly played grand slam ... a
beautifully written memory play."
Books in Canada commented
that Shields' style "... is often
ironic, affectionately mocking ...
lightly humorous, with a delicacy
and subtlety of language."
Thirteen Hands, starring Sharon
Bakker, Michelle Fisk, Goldie
Semple and Jane Spidell, directed
by Diana Belshaw, with music
composed by Roger Perkins, opens
at the Blyth Festival July 30 and
plays in repertory until Sept. 5. For
tickets and information call the box
office at 519-523-9300.
Stag cf. Dee
for
SANDRA BRIDGE
& DAVID SCARROW
Friday, August 7
at Brussels Arena
9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Music by D.J.
For tickets call 887-6795
or 887-9757
Age of majority
Family and Friends
Please come and
join us for an
teM
L322210M
Cdelviatia"
CIRO liCAM
for
Kenneth B.
Campbell
on
Sun., Aug. 2, 1998
1-4 pm
Auburn Community Hall
Best Wishes Only Please!!!
"THE B OCKI3USTER WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!"
BILL ZWECKER/WMACtTV (NBO/CH 1040
"4