PREVIEW
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Plain Jane Theatre
Feb. 15 to 24
Varscona Theatre
10329 – 83 Ave.
Tickets: Start at $23. Visit http://yeglive.ca
Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 hit Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was a very funny film later unleashed on Broadway’s theatre-going public as a musical. Unfortunately, it flopped.
The initial vision, created by composer-lyricist David Yazbek and writer Jeffrey Lane, the team behind Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Full Monty, was simply too grandiose.
“It was the perfect flop. It was overdone. It did far too much and lost the sense of what the story was all about. Even the orchestra was overdone, and it lost a lot of the intimacy of the film,” said Kate Ryan, artistic director of Plain Jane Theatre.
The musical comedy has since has been reworked, and the Plain Janes are mounting it Feb. 15 to 24 at Varscona Theatre.
This new show has a tough job to live up to Almodóvar’s vision. In part it arises from the Broadway musical’s difficulty in gaining traction, but also because this is the Plain Jane’s largest show to date.
However, Ryan felt Yazbek captured Almodóvar’s spirit and raw energy.
“The score kept me fighting to do it. It’s sizzling, hot-blooded, fun and authentic.”
She also fell in love with the comedy’s humanity.
“It comes from the gut. It’s a perfect marriage between David and Pedro and what he celebrates in his work. Pedro celebrates hot-blooded women who celebrate life. The play is surrounded by women in pain. They are driven, and having their voices heard is very important,” Ryan said.
In a brief recap, it is 1980s Madrid. Pepa is a forty-something actress having an affair with Ivan, a handsome but unfaithful lover. Pepa has important news for Ivan. She’s pregnant.
During a 48-hour quest to find him, she meets other women that have man-problems. Ivan’s estranged wife, Lucia, released from a psychiatric hospital after a 20-year commitment, is bent on revenge. Candela, Pepa’s friend, just discovered she’s sleeping with a terrorist. And Marisa, the girlfriend of Ivan’s son, Carlos, is stubbornly determined to marry.
Two St. Albert Children’s Theatre alumni, Madelaine Knight and Gabriel Gagnon, who first worked together on Capitol Theatre’s Sleeping Beauty panto, have nabbed the roles of Marisa and Carlos.
“We’ve developed a friendship on stage and that makes working together easier. Gab is very generous and he’s willing to try things. He has no ego,” said Knight.
For Knight, the musical is largely about female empowerment. Yet Marissa, a woman frantically trying to marry at all costs, goes against the actress’ grain.
“She’s very conservative, very religious. She goes by the book, follows the rules and is very severe. I have to fight my normal nurturing tendencies. Every line, I’m whipping Carlos and staying on the wedding track,” laughed Knight.
In this woman-heavy production, Gagnon adds that women have a great deal of power and do not need a man in their life.
“You just have to take the first step to be a strong woman,” he said.
Gagnon views Carlos as a bit of a child who grew up with a distant father and absent mother. He is ready to take the next step in life, but feels trapped in an ill-suited relationship, and gravitates to another woman.
“Carlos feels stifled and he goes along because that’s all he knows.”
Ultimately, all the characters undergo changes.
Ryan summed it up saying, “For me, it’s about capturing the joy through heartbreak, resilience and sense of community.”
