By Joe Szekeres
This is the third time I’ve seen ‘The Cemetery Club’ over the last few years since I began reviewing. It’s interesting how each community theatre production has made its comparison to the wildly successful run of NBC’s mega television hit from the 1990s entitled ‘The Golden Girls’.
I understand why this specific marketing technique is used because the community theatre wants to draw in the crowds if an audience can make a preliminary connection to the show. Yes, there are similarities between ‘The Golden Girls’ and Ivan Menchell’s ‘The Cemetery Club’. Two out of three women are widows. There is a feisty one, a sex starved one, and the loyal one. The women have developed solid friendships through the hardships life throws its way from time to time.
The last two productions I’ve seen of ‘The Cemetery Club’ worked well because each production successfully moved beyond that sitcom format to present a story of real people who deal with life the best way they can.
Ajax Community Theatre’s production does just that too. Under Ray Porrill’s careful direction with a central cast of three dynamic dames who go for broke in delivering the one-line zingers back and forth, this ‘Cemetery Club’ strikes an even balance between capturing how extraordinarily funny life can be at one point while dealing with the stark reality of what life can also throw its way without it becoming melodramatic or schmaltzy.
Three Jewish widow ladies, Ida (Jane Hickey), Lucille (Shari Thorne) and Doris (Cathy Johnston-Thompson) meet once a month to go visit their husbands at their graves. We learn these three couples did everything together before the women helped each other through the loss of their spouses. It is while visiting their husband’s graves one day the ladies meet quiet and shy local butcher Sam (Dave Edwards) who is also visiting his wife’s grave. The ladies begin to take a ‘shine’ to Sam and the ‘fight’ is on. In the second act, we are also introduced to Mildred (Jo-Anne Adams), an acquaintance of the ladies who craves attention and focus most of the time.
Jennie Archambault’s set design of Ida’s living room in Forest Hills, New York, is comfortable looking with tasteful décor throughout. A piano/organ can be found stage right while a bar/drinks table is found stage left. There is the central door upstage centre with an archway upstage left leading to the kitchen. There is a stairway upstage right leading to the bedrooms of the house. Chris Northey’s lighting design brightly focuses our attention where necessary. At the top of the show, we see the three headstones of the husbands. Five minutes before the play opens, these three headstones are removed.
I especially liked Mr. Northey’s lighting focus on the three headstones when Ida, Lucille and Doris are at their husbands’ graves. There was nice work from all three during their individual monologues where they talk to their husbands.
The theatrical chemistry between Jane Hickey, Shari Thorne and Cathy Johnston-Thompson is a treat to watch. These three gals are a solid ensemble of performers who immediately captured my attention at their first entrance while innately never pulling focus from each other. Instead, each has presented a very real person while not duplicating a television screen counterpart from ‘The Golden Girls’.
Jane Hickey’s Ida appears to be the most grounded and sensible of all three. Yes, Ida misses her husband tremendously and is most appreciative of her friends who have helped her through her grieving. But Ida begins to understand that there is more to life than simply visiting their dead husbands and wants to start anew somehow. As man hungry Lucille who wants to ‘get going’ again, Shari Thorne deliciously uses her feminine wiles to comic effect one minute (pay close attention to the seduction of Sam in the second act) while showing us a very humane side near the end of the play. Cathy Johnston-Thompson’s Doris is quite touching at times. Ms. Johnston-Thompson’s eyes convey so much about her characterization of Doris. It has been four years since Doris’s husband passed away, but Ms. Johnston-Thompson uses her eyes to convey poignantly that she could begin to cry at any moment because she misses her husband so much and remains loyal to him and his memory.
Dave Edwards’ nice ‘guy’ Sam offers an effective on-stage juxtaposition to the rapid-fire dialogue between the three ladies. Again, pay careful attention to how Mr. Edwards beautifully conducts his reaction to Lucille’s seduction without upstaging Ms. Thorne’s work. As the ‘show-off’, conceited acquaintance Mildred, Jo-Anne Adams bursts onto the stage with much fanfare to offer another amusing view on how the three friends deal with her. (Can everyone say MEOW?)
FINAL COMMENTS: In his Director’s Note, Mr. Porrill writes how this play ‘handles a very sensitive area of death and memory with humour and heart and dialogue that has bite and warmth’. How very true with this local theatre production in Durham.
Give yourselves an early Christmas/ holiday gift, or even one more JUST GO to see some fine local entertainment here in Durham Region.
‘The Cemetery Club’ continues to November 23. For further information, visit the website.