REVIEW
The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls
Runs until Saturday, April 13
Walterdale Theatre
10322 – 83 Ave.
Tickets: $18 to $20. Call 780-4201757 or at www.tixonthesquare.ca
Sibling relationships are tricky. One moment you love ’em. The next, you’re pulling each other’s hair. Sometimes siblings are so locked in a pattern of behaviour, it defines who they are.
That’s the challenge three sisters face in The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls now playing at Walterdale Theatre until Saturday, April 13.
As adults, the three Fine sisters have grown apart. But they all converge on the family home to plan their father’s funeral. And at their father’s request, it’s a “wild party” that includes step-dancers and throat singers.
JoJo, the eldest, is a self-absorbed university professor conducting dry research on Brecht. She is divorced and her current love life is worse than extinct.
Jayne is a high finance wheeler-dealer, a piranha who loves the slow kill as much as closing the deal. She’s also a paranoid, closeted lesbian in danger of losing her lover.
The youngest sister is Jelly, a fairly successful artist who uses boxes to create art installations. A caring individual, she moved in with her father during his final months and quickly reveals a degree of maturity her sisters lack.
The 90-minute show takes place at the middle-class Fine home. Set designer Jim Herchak has miraculously divided Walterdale’s limited playing space into a kitchen, living room and the attic where forgotten objects trigger revelations and reminiscences.
In a series of flashbacks to childhood, including several with dress-up scenes in a torture dress and mother’s pearls, the trio plays games with each other. The romps reveal the way they treated each other as children is carried into adulthood.
JoJo is pretentious and throws tantrums. Jayne goads JoJo and treats Jelly like an imbecile. Both older sisters see Jelly as the baby and ignore her needs and suggestions.
Their collective emotional baggage weighs them down and the party becomes a perfect excuse to imbibe freely and let loose long-rooted frustrations.
Allie Connop’s role as JoJo demands a certain moodiness where she swings from a repressed academic to venting bitterly about the unfairness of life. Now if only she’d listen to people instead of dispensing unwanted advice.
Wylee Johnston’s Jayne consistently attacks her sisters while trying to rein in her repressed sexuality. One of the play’s funniest scenes is when an inebriated Jayne strips off her shirt while praising the beauty of her breasts.
Murriel Mapa as Jelly, the quietest sister, is probably the most difficult role requiring the actress to be subdued yet ultimately revealing that she is the family linch-pin holding everyone together.
Martha Ross, Alessa Dufresne, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Jennifer Brewin, Alisa Palmer and Leah Cherniak originally wrote the play as an improvised collective.
With many voices contributing to the script, which is lightweight and at times appears aimless, it is a challenge for any director. However, director Ann Marie Szucs has adroitly used the whole playhouse stage to bring this screaming dysfunctional family to a comfortable conclusion.
