“Some of the most potentially moving moments of the show are overdone, verging on melodrama”
Judy Garland. Audrey Hepburn. Marilyn Monroe. Beth Burrows’ one woman show puts these three sirens of the silver screen on stage together, singing some of their most famous songs and telling us the stories of their lives.
Burrows, performer and creator of the show, is warm, personable and immediately likeable. She communicates each of the different women with a clear admiration and understanding, playfully witty, tender and moving in her depictions. It’s a wonderful showcase for her voice, and her lower vocal range in particular is a joy to listen to. There are a few moments where the addendum ‘less is more’ ought to have been applied. Some of the most potentially moving moments of the show are overdone, verging on melodrama and a more subtle approach would ensure these moments have the impact they aim for.
The show is ultimately a history, a reminiscence, and whilst this is certainly interesting and I learn a lot about our three characters, a more personal, more in depth approach would take this piece to the next level. The piece begins conversations about so many deeply topical subjects, fame, substance abuse, sexual harassment in Hollywood, to name but a few. Unfortunately these aren’t really unpacked or commented upon, beyond a brief link to Harvey Weinstein. More moments like this, connecting these histories to our contemporary society would ensure the show feels relevant and fresh. Furthermore, the choice to put these three women together in one show isn’t sufficiently explored, and a greater emphasis on how they link to each other would help achieve a more cohesive result.
This is a really well made piece of theatre, informative, and beautifully delivered by Burrows, but it fails to access the potential depth and topicality of its subjects.
“definite shades of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr from the fifties romance ‘An Affair to Remember’”
It has often been said that good books make bad plays and vice versa. A generalisation I know, yet examples are rare of adaptations that stand as pieces of work in their own right – and interestingly these usually occur when the playwright takes liberties with the source material. Writer and director Mark Giesser’s adaptation of “The Lady with a Dog” is one of those rare examples. He has modernised Chekhov’s endearing classic short story about infidelity, obsession and secrecy, planting it into 1920s England, without losing any of the fine moral conundrums inherent in the original.
Damian Granville (Richard Lynson) is a banker on holiday, without his wife, on the Scottish coast who becomes intrigued with a young woman (Beth Burrows) and her small Pomeranian dog. He uses the dog to strike up a conversation, learns that she is called Anne Dennis, and that she is married but also on holiday without her husband. Over the days, Damian and Anne see a lot of each other and grow close. Lynson gives a fine performance as the older man intrigued by the exuberant naïveté of another potential ‘conquest’. In Chekhov’s original the character initially comes off as quite unlikeable: a serial philanderer who regards women as the ‘lower race’, but thankfully Lynson dispels any sense of misogyny with his fine-tuned portrayal, while Burrows delightfully betrays a sharpness beneath Anne’s innocence as she teases and flirts with him. There are definite shades of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr from the fifties romance ‘An Affair to Remember’ and the two actors here share the same sizzling chemistry.
Played out on Oscar Selfridge’s striking art deco set, the intensity of the affair is given added poignancy with the introduction of the respective spouses. A brilliantly clever device; they appear as figments of the imagination, meandering between conscience and flashback, before solidifying into real protagonists. Laura Glover, as Elaine Granville, is a master of the ‘put-down’ and she fills the space with a performance that manages to strike a perfect balance between scorn and resigned affection for her husband. Duncan MacInnes is magnificent, too, as the cuckolded husband to Anne. Far from being Chekov’s wet-blanket, MacInnes shows an inner strength that somehow makes Anne’s infidelity less demeaning.
There are great moments of comedy too, particularly during a delightful scene in a cinema where Damian mischievously places himself next to Anne and her husband, and another later scene where the two couples confront each other. These are extraneous to Chekhov’s story, and it is moments such as these that give real flesh to the bare bones of the story. I did wonder how such a slim tale could be padded out into a two-hour drama, but this production succeeds. Full of bittersweet charm it captures the spirit of the age while exploring the ageless mystery of love and commitment.
