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Ovation Theatres Limited presents
Come Back to the 5 & Dime,
Written by Ed Graczyk
Directed by John Plews
Design and Costumes by Piera Lizzeri
Lighting design by Lawrence Stromski
Upstairs at the Gatehouse
18 Sept – 18 Oct 09
A review by Chad Armitstead for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Everything may be different, but nothing ever changes. Nowhere makes that more clear than the time-warp five and dime store upstairs at the Gatehouse. The 1975 store is a fossilisation of 1955 in McCarthy, Texas, a fictitious town frozen in time since the freeway builders ignored it and the world followed suit. Ovation has revived the story of the women of McCarthy in its production of the Broadway hit Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. The faithfully re-created venue (thanks to designer Piera Lizzeri) plays host to two times, one purpose and six women (and the term ‘woman’ is flexible here). Juanita (Jenny Marlowe) runs a store that boasts two shrines: one to Jesus and one to Jimmy Dean. And it’s clear who’s being worshipped here. Having decorated the place for the twenty-year reunion of the Disciples of Jimmy Dean (on the anniversary of the star’s death), Juanita and Mona (Adrienne Matzen) await the arrival of the rest of the Disciples from out of town: Sissy (Julie Rose Smith), Stella May (Kathryn Georghiou), Edna Louise (Coren Fitzgerald), and Joe (Josh Boyd Rochford). As the women are arriving, Mona’s son Jimmy Dean (the alleged offspring of the star) has gone missing and the mysterious Joanne (Eleanor Boyce) arrives. On a split stage, the last meeting of the Disciples in 1955 unfolds at the same time as the reunion in 1975. The play explores the truth about the fateful night Mona spent with Jimmy Dean as well as the truth about the women’s lives since. By the time 1975 rolls around, Mona’s not the only one with secrets. Stella May and Edna Louise play themselves in both times, while younger actors play Mona (Fiona Drummond), Sissy (Catherine Nix-Collins), and (first-act spoiler alert) Joanne’s pre-operation self, Joe, in 1955. Come Back to the 5 and Dime achieves the impressive feat of being everything the theatre establishment loves without losing touch with its paying public. It explores women’s issues and gives voice to marginalized fringes of society (e.g. the transgender community) while at the same time delivering delightfully flawed characters, a warm world and plenty of story. It’s also the rarest of beasts in theatre, a play with eight (count ‘em, eight) complex roles for women. The play hinges on strong female characters and their chemistry to drive the story. While there could be perhaps less ‘acting’ during the monologues and fiery tête à têtes in 1975 and more genuine connection with the weight of the intervening twenty years on the women, Ovation’s cast gets a lot right. The spitfire women of the Gatehouse’s show transport you with the lilting sass of the American South. Speaking with all the authority of an American who was raised a stone’s throw from Texas (if you can throw a stone across Arizona), it’s refreshing to see a production in London with absolutely zero accent-induced cringes. Coren Fitzgerald plays Edna Louise with a touching fragile simplicity. Though I’m sure she’ll not take issue if I do say she may be a bit trim to be cast as pregnant, bump or no bump. Eleanor Boyce avoids the pitfall of over-camping the transgender Joanne, nailing a natural, but practised feminine confidence. Julie Rose Smith (1975 Sissy) adds defiant resolve to the vivacious laissez-faire of Catherine Nix-Collins’ young Sissy. Adrienne Matzen’s beaten-but-still-angry Mona offers a disheartened contrast to her exuberantly lying younger self (Fiona Drummond). The play certainly leaves one considering how time has moved on, how it hasn’t and at what cost. Though twenty years have passed, Kathryn Georghiou’s stony Stella May still castigates the simple and the sincere, reminding us how no matter how much time passes, we still revert to the same power dynamics—in our families, at school reunions or at office parties. The vicious attack of Josh Boyd Rochford’s painfully innocent Joe, his departure from McCarthy and the variously shocked and less-than-warm reactions to his return as Joanne don’t feel too different from the reception she might still receive in some places today. With flawed but lovable characters that stay mostly off the soapbox, Ed Graczyk and John Plews remind us that we perhaps haven’t come as far as we thought. Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean creates a world where the simple speak the truth, those finding no meaning in their lives invent it, and those who change live to regret it. But for cast and audience, there’s more laughing than thinking at the five and dime. So it’s absolutely worth the trip to Highgate to put a coin in the jukebox and sit down with six southern belles for an Orange Crush.
TO BOOK TICKETS CALL THE BOX OFFICE: 020 8340 3488 www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com
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ary Couzens