life with more cowbell

Sometimes a stamp isn’t just a stamp.

A pair of rare postage stamps becomes a catalyst for hopes, dreams and desires in The Village Players’ production of Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius, directed by Michael Hiller, which opened at the Village Playhouse last night.

Estranged step-sisters Jackie (Rebecca De La Cour) and Mary (Tina McCulloch) are reunited following the death of their mother, and discover Mary’s grandfather’s stamp collection as they sort through their mother’s things. The two have very different perspectives of both the stamps’ ownership and destiny. When Rebecca’s attempt to get the stamps appraised is rebuffed by the owner/operator of Phil’s stamp shop (Douglas Tindal), Phil’s friend Dennis (Derek Perks) comes to her assistance. He finds the collection extremely interesting – interesting enough to contact the wealthy and shady Sterling (Robert Woodcock), an extreme stamp aficionado, to broker a deal.

The Mauritius script has a Walker meets Mamet flavour – and the cast does an effing nice job of it. Tindal is dishevelled and Sphinx-like as stamp expert Phil; his shop, like its owner, is frozen in time (somewhere around the 70s) and understated in its seediness (set by Nadia Dziubaniwsky). Perks is delightfully wiry and wily as the fast-talking, likeable scoundrel Dennis; a smooth operator, and adept at sizing up people and situations, there’s more to Dennis than meets the eye. De La Cour’s Jackie is a tough cookie; assertive and brave, yet full of hurt and longing – and grasping at hope – under that brash exterior. Woodcock is a remarkable presence as Sterling; physically, psychologically and intellectually menacing, with a soft underbelly invoked by the stamps, his object of obsession and desire. And McCulloch brings some nice, complex layers of propriety, nostalgia and fierceness to Mary, who is deeply conflicted within her family dynamic and personal attachment to her grandfather’s stamp collection.

Each character’s response to the stamps reveals what he/she values: money, freedom, history, possession and legacy.

Secrets, schemes and stamps in The Village Players’ sharp and darkly funny Mauritius.

Mauritius continues at the Village until Jan 30; show dates/times and ticket info here. You can keep up with the Village Players’ goings-on on Twitter and Facebook.