I first saw the Templeton Philharmonic earlier this year in their Toronto Fringe Next Stage Festival production of Unbridled and Unstable. Whip smart and funny, with a talent for vintage characterizations and dialect – it was love at first sight.
The darlings of the Templeton Philharmonic are back, this time with their SummerWorks production of An Evening in July, currently running at St. George the Martyr Anglican Church (197 John St.). I saw the show yesterday – on an afternoon in August.
Inspired by the famous Grey Gardens documentary and Helene de Rothschild’s Surrealist Ball (1972), An Evening in July is a site-specific, immersive theatrical experience, during which the audience is invited to wander the garden courtyard and inside the estate home’s great room (the church hall, transformed), where one may purchase a drink from the cash bar before the show starts. The courtyard is rife with strange and beautiful objets – and we are invited to examine, and even touch, them. We are, however, forbidden to touch the ancient tower with the blue door at the end of the garden. The great room has been set up with banquet tables, covered with cast aside books, including a guest book. On the wall, there’s an old damaged painting of a man that looks as if someone’s put a fist to him.
Sisters May (Briana Templeton) and June (Gwynne Phillips) are a pair of exceedingly privileged and bored socialites, kicking around their crumbling and isolated family estate, with only their man servant Robert (Thom Stoneman) to look after them. Suddenly, an idea! Throw a birthday party for June! And everyone’s invited. Not entirely certain of when that is, they randomly choose an evening in July – like so many other random choices and decisions.
We follow the sisters back and forth between the garden and the house as they plan the party and reminisce about times past, incorporating audience members into their descriptions of various friends and acquaintances. We watch them play a hilarious game of badminton, and once the party is in full swing, are invited to join in a game of cards, and a game of cat and mouse beneath a pink parachute held aloft by all and sundry. Yes – I said pink!
Stellar, hysterically funny and heart-achingly touching performances. As June, Phillips is flippant and bored, and on some new bizarre diet every week – but lonely and wistful, longing for the return of happier times. Templeton’s May is Kate Hepburnesque, with a haughty, critical air and wry wit; there is also a sense of deep melancholy beneath the rich girl good times. Even through their sniping and grumbling, these two sisters love each other a whole bunch. And Stoneman is lovely as the affable and helpful Robert, acting as the sisters’ caretaker and bartender, and the audience’s host and guide.
It’s hilarious, haunting and high-brow good times, where the wit is dry and the bar is wet in An Evening in July.
An Evening in July continues at St. George the Martyr until Aug 16 – see the show page for exact dates/times. Those with mobility issues may secure a permanent seat for the duration of the festivities from the extremely nice Robert.
life with more cowbell 