There’s a wee Mametpalooza happening in Toronto right now, with two exciting productions of David Mamet plays, featuring some fine local female actors: Headstrong Collective’s Boston Marriage at Campbell House Museum and an all-female cast in Glengarry Glen Ross at Red Sandcastle Theatre. I saw Headstrong’s Boston Marriage, directed by Kelli Fox, last night.
Intimately staged in the parlour on the main floor of Campbell House Museum, the audience is seated along two walls, giving us a fly on the wall view of the proceedings.
This is an unusual play for Mamet: for its all-female cast and period setting. This is Mamet meets the Victorians – and the result is an interesting, if not anachronistic, piece of theatre featuring brilliant, almost Cowardesque, dialogue. At times the language of the drawing room, then lyrical or profane – it is fast-paced, unapologetic, erotic and even harsh on occasion.
Two particular friends reunite after being apart for some time. Anna (Catherine McNally) receives Claire (Deborah Drakeford) into her home, a home that is subsidized by Anna’s “protector,” a married man who’s taken her as his mistress. Claire has a favour to ask: she needs a place in which to have a private liaison with a younger love interest. The discussion that follows is less about the tenancy agreement and more about their relationship.
And then there’s that necklace. Sometimes, a gorgeous necklace can be way more trouble than it’s worth. Anna’s protector has gifted her a lovely emerald necklace, and this decision sets off a series of misadventure that pulls the women’s focus from their current desires and into damage control.
Throughout the exchanges of acerbic wit and lightning fast rapport, there is a poignant underpinning of desperation and loneliness as we watch Anna and Claire get reacquainted. Opposites in many ways, but so alike as they both struggle, as unmarried women, to survive – all the while fearing that their best years are behind them. Like Dorothy at the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, grasping for a true happiness that they believe lies beyond their own backyard. And while Anna’s young maid Catherine (Charlotte Dennis) is of the servant class, they can’t help but envy her youth – now in the first blossom of love and lust – and the fact that she has her whole life ahead of her even as a good portion of theirs is in the past.
Brought into the production by actors McNally and Drakeford, Fox is a thoroughly good match for this play and this cast. You can read Fox’s thoughts about Mamet and Boston Marriage in Jon Kaplan’s preview interview for NOW Magazine.
McNally and Drakeford give powerhouse performances, nicely supported by Dennis. McNally’s Anna has a delicious dramatic flair, yet is conventional and pragmatic in her way, deftly aware of the economics of her situation, and deeply hurt by Claire’s revelation of a new, and very young, love. As Claire, Drakeford has a lovely bohemian edge; fiercely independent and sensual, she has the air of an adventuress about her – as well as the hopeless romantic. You can picture Anna and Claire meeting at an art college, dreams of their future together opening up before them as their love grows. But then, paths diverge only to reconnect years later – and with very different lives. Even after their long separation, their conversation is the quixotic shorthand of good friends, slowed down only somewhat by moments of grasping for words, as we gals of a certain age are wont to do. Dennis is a delight as the saucy Scottish maid Catherine; fearless and outspoken in her naiveté, but not as clueless as she sometimes appears. And she gets an earful – and likely an education – with her employer’s goings-on.
It’s razor sharp, mercurial wit tinged with poignancy as two women spar with time and each other as they talk around their love in this marvelous production of Boston Marriage.
Boston Marriage continues at Campbell House until April 26. Seating is limited, so advance booking is strongly recommended. Get yourselves out to Campbell House to see this. You can get tickets online here.
In the meantime, you can check out the interviews with Fox, McNally and Drakeford on Headstrong Collective’s YouTube channel.
life with more cowbell 