Love, Loss, and What I Wore

Who’d imagine that a play based on talking about clothes would work – and be interesting and funny and even a little sad? But in the capable hands of director Meredith Jacobs and five feisty female performers, it does!

Written by the Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle) and Delia Ephron, this play is story-telling contemporary-style. The book of the same name, written by Ilene Beckerman as a memoir for her family, became a best seller. Her memories, written with typical New York Yiddish candour and humour, are based on drawings of the dresses and accessories that marked particular milestones in her life – some happy, some not so happy. The play finds all of that.

The characters are very real, very familiar. They use reminisces about party dresses, prom dresses, wedding dresses, fitting rooms, a special shirt, a bathrobe, boots, shoes, purses … and wearing black … to describe ‘rites of passage’ which will recall similar moments in most women’s lives .

If it sounds like a woman’s play, well, I guess it is, but why not?  It’s a great chance for five female actors to strut their stuff in a contemporary play, written by women, for women and directed by a woman. That doesn’t happen often enough!

Jacobs has, yet again, collaborated with designer Trevor Chase to set this play. His once-a-year sets are always creative, and this is no exception. It’s austere, minimalist. Five high, black chairs; five black vertical flats juxtaposed with shafts of light. And five women dressed in black. It’s modern and different, as is the play itself – and Jacobs’ direction celebrates that difference, picking up the particular rhythm of the writing, the varying tempos of the twenty-eight scenes and the individuality of more than 30 characters.

Original music, composed especially for the production by Joshua McNulty, and recorded by a twenty strong Conservatorium-based ensemble, gives extra depth and complexity to the production. So too does the lighting (Sean Churchward) and a little Madonna tribute choreographed by Gavin Jamieson.

Annette van Roden leads the cast as Gingy (aka Beckerman). She is vibrant in this role, picking up on the intonations and structure in the writing to establish the accent, phrasing and self-deprecating humour of Beckerman’s character. She uses gesture effectively but economically, engaging the audience in manner that is warm and very natural.

Her anecdotes, lovingly shared, spark the reactions of the many other characters, played by with panache by Sandy Velini, Mary Clarke, Leigh Scanlon and Kate Gandy. Together, at times, they share brief memories, one-liners that they bounce off each other in rapid succession. Alone, sometimes, they share more heart-felt moments, moving into characterisations that are more complex, some funny, some very poignant, all very real. In fact, they play ‘everywoman’: a teenager choosing a prom dress; a twenty-eight year-old facing breast cancer; a woman mourning the loss of a shirt in which she always felt strong; a woman complaining about her purse.

There will be few women in the audience who don’t identify with of these very well drawn and performed characters. There will be few men who won’t nudge their partners, or nod or shake their heads as they hear familiar complaints or recognise familiar scenarios.

Carol Wimmer 

Photographer: Chris Lundie