There’s a new theatre company on the horizon and it’s hitting the ground running.
780 Players has mounted Jake’s Women and it runs until Saturday, June 29 at the ATB Financial Arts Barns in Old Strathcona.
The Neil Simon comedy is about a man who works through major relationship issues in an unusual way. He imagines conversations.
Jake is a successful writer with a marriage in trouble and a mental block. Trying to save his marriage, he talks to the women he’s known, both in real life and in his imagination. We gradually discover he has a psychosis.
In this daring cast directed by Gil Allen, Paul Kane physical fitness instructor Franco Imbrogno stars as Jake and St. Albert resident Lori Kovacks plays the role of his sister Karen.
“Neil Simon is brilliant. It’s a smart, funny play. He is classically funny. He will go down in history as a great playwright. This play is about one man’s journey to find resolution with his dead wife, his present wife who is leaving him, his sister, his therapist, his daughter and his mistress,” says Kovacks.
She explains that Jake has never lost his love for his late wife Julie.
“He keeps bringing her back. He’s remarried but the first wife keeps coming between them. He never let go and his sister keeps wanting to smack him on the head ’cause he’s being so stupid.”
However, since he imagines these conversations, the audience only meets his version of the women.
Unlike some of Simon’s more traditional slapstick comedies, this piece is an intellectual, thought-provoking work.
“It’s a great night out. It’s not offensive. It’s funny and touching, and it deals with real emotions and current relationship issues.”
Tickets are available at the door. They are $20 adults and $15 for students and seniors.
