Haley McGee as Caroline, Rylan Wilkie as Michel and Duval Lang as Russell. Photo by Terry Manzo.
HEATHER BOA Bullet News BLYTH – A heavy dose of humour gives Having Hope at Home, which opened at the Blyth Festival last night, an opportunity for us to laugh at so many things that can sometimes seem unbearable in family relationships.
A story by playwright David S. Craig that centres around a young woman, Carolyn, played with an endearing charm by Haley McGee, who wants to host the perfect dinner of turkey and all the trimmings for her judgmental parents, despite the fact that she is in labour, proved to have as much relevance today as it did when it premiered at the Festival nearly a decade ago.
Carolyn and her French boyfriend, Michel, live in a tired, rambling farmhouse heated by a wood stove. The toilet is broken and the additional insulation is exposed. Michel milks cows on the farm that used to belong to Carolyn’s grandfather, who lives with them. He’s arthritic and his heart is poor, but he’s still game to meddle in the milk room, chop firewood and try to do odd jobs. Then along come her parents, her father who grew up on the farm and rarely stepped foot in the barn, choosing instead to bury himself in studies so that he could become one of the best gynecologists around, and her mother, who loves Royal Doulton figurines and lipstick. Finally, thrown into the mix is a mid-wife who speaks her mind, and there’s a quirky lot of dinner party guests.
Over the course of the evening, the story touches on the complexities of relationships between family members and across generations: daughters who want acceptance from their mothers, mothers who want to be needed by daughters, sons who want their fathers to recognize success; parents who raised children and lose touch with their own relationships; fathers who can’t express emotions to sons because that was always the job of mothers. And that’s just for starters.
But right from the opening scene, when a long moan fills the theatre and two hands gloved in turquoise rubber grab the back of the couch in dragged out exaggeration as a pregnant woman emerges where she presumably dropped from labour pain, thankfully there’s comic relief from all that the playwright puts under the microscope.
Director Leah Cherniak hits a lovely stride in the play, avoiding temptation to take the play from humorous to ridiculous. There is opportunity to abandon restraint and go over the top, and indeed she may have in an instance or two, like when an argument ends with one parent standing on a chair in a race around the kitchen table, but for the most part the humour is dialed back to believable.
There are some wonderfully all-out funny, funny moments in the play, and it would spoil the fun for theatre-goers to share too many of them. But how arthritic Russell, so cleverly played by Duval Lang, decides to chop carrots when the knife becomes too cumbersome or what he does with unguarded glasses of booze give cathartic release to poignant moments, like when Carolyn’s mother comes unglued because it seems her daughter doesn’t need her. Three rounds of musical chairs as mother and daughter match wills to determine who will take the head of the table is particularly enjoyable.
The play drags for a bit in the second act, when it appears too many issues get pulled into the story. It even gets confusing when Russell’s talk about going off into the great beyond settles out to simply taking a nap on the woodpile. But these are minor glitches in an otherwise enjoyable performance.
The cast is strong too. In a play where an actor may easily fall into the trap of overacting, this cast pulls together with an ease that could make one think the story unfolded at his own dining room table.
Having Hope at Home runs until Aug. 18.
For more information, please visit online or call 1-877-862-5984.
Having Hope at Home is sponsored by the OLG and myFM. The 2012 Season Sponsor is Sparling’s Propane Company Limited and the Season Media Sponsor is CTV.
