Wholesome harvest
Two excellent adaptations emerge in Kindertransport and The Glass Menagerie
by AMY BARRATT
Nobody pinch me. If I'm dreaming I don't want to wake up. Last week I was lucky enough to see two really well-built plays, one a contemporary British work, the other a modern American classic. Kindertransport, by Diane Samuels, was first performed in London in 1993. The story of a young Jewish girl sent out of Germany to a family in Manchester just before the outbreak of World War II, it is being produced here by Persephone Productions at the Calixa-Lavallée theatre.
Persephone's official mandate is to produce plays with "literary and social significance," all the while providing work opportunities for young theatre professionals. These goals are met with this production. Of a cast of six, four are graduates of John Abbott College's professional theatre program, where the company's founder, Gabrielle Soskin, teaches.
In the past, Soskin has cast young people as older characters, however here she brings in two mature actresses to round out the cast of five women and one man. That's a constant in all of Persephone's shows so far: lots of good roles for women.
Given the theme - children separated from their parents - Kindertransport could easily have been a multi-hankie weeper. It is to Samuels' credit that she never reaches for our heartstrings, but simply creates believable characters and presents them to us without judgement. The production, on the other hand, often seems too restrained.
The performance I attended was the first preview, which perhaps partially accounts for a tentativeness in the acting. The strongest performances came from Karen Cromar, who plays Lit, the adoptive English mum, and Jennifer Wade, as Helga, the German mum who sends her nine year old away to safety not knowing if they will ever meet again.
Where British accents are required, the actors do a passable job, though they sound more mid-Atlantic than Manchester. The German accents, however, are exaggerated to the point of caricature. Especially in the first scene between young Eva and her mother - a scene in which we understand that they are meant to be speaking German - I wondered why not let the actresses just use their normal accents.
This season, Persephone is doubly ambitious: they will follow up Kindertransport with a January production of Steven Berkoff's West, which, incidentally, will help right the company's gender imbalance with its mostly-male cast.
The powers-that-be at the Saidye ought to be kicking themselves that they didn't get to this play first.
Reprinted from The Montreal Mirror October 10, 2002
Nobody pinch me. If I'm dreaming I don't want to wake up. Last week I was lucky enough to see two really well-built plays, one a contemporary British work, the other a modern American classic. Kindertransport, by Diane Samuels, was first performed in London in 1993. The story of a young Jewish girl sent out of Germany to a family in Manchester just before the outbreak of World War II, it is being produced here by Persephone Productions at the Calixa-Lavallée theatre.
Persephone's official mandate is to produce plays with "literary and social significance," all the while providing work opportunities for young theatre professionals. These goals are met with this production. Of a cast of six, four are graduates of John Abbott College's professional theatre program, where the company's founder, Gabrielle Soskin, teaches.
In the past, Soskin has cast young people as older characters, however here she brings in two mature actresses to round out the cast of five women and one man. That's a constant in all of Persephone's shows so far: lots of good roles for women.
Given the theme - children separated from their parents - Kindertransport could easily have been a multi-hankie weeper. It is to Samuels' credit that she never reaches for our heartstrings, but simply creates believable characters and presents them to us without judgement. The production, on the other hand, often seems too restrained.
The performance I attended was the first preview, which perhaps partially accounts for a tentativeness in the acting. The strongest performances came from Karen Cromar, who plays Lit, the adoptive English mum, and Jennifer Wade, as Helga, the German mum who sends her nine year old away to safety not knowing if they will ever meet again.
Where British accents are required, the actors do a passable job, though they sound more mid-Atlantic than Manchester. The German accents, however, are exaggerated to the point of caricature. Especially in the first scene between young Eva and her mother - a scene in which we understand that they are meant to be speaking German - I wondered why not let the actresses just use their normal accents.
This season, Persephone is doubly ambitious: they will follow up Kindertransport with a January production of Steven Berkoff's West, which, incidentally, will help right the company's gender imbalance with its mostly-male cast.
The powers-that-be at the Saidye ought to be kicking themselves that they didn't get to this play first.
Reprinted from The Montreal Mirror October 10, 2002