Fly Me to the Moon a grand tall tale
We are quite familiar with the works of Irish playwright Marie Jones. She had a huge success a few years back with Stones in His Pockets the story of a couple of sad sack extras in a major movie being shot in Ireland. There have been, at least, two productions staged in Edmonton. Jones is something of a bard for the Irish underclass and, while her first intention is to make us laugh, the laughter is anchored in a solid base of social comment.
Her darkly comic new play, Fly Me To The Moon, the current production of Edmonton’s Shadow Theatre, is not nearly as bright as Stones…, a classic piece of Irish blarney if ever there was one. Jones has tapped into the cadences of urban Belfast to fashion her blue-collar play – and the impeccable Irish accent of the two performers lends itself to comic readings. Credit for the bang-on West Belfast accents, which sound as if they came straight from Shankill Road and maintain right through the production, is probably due in no small part to David Ley and Jane MacFarlane who are credited with “dialect support.”
Darker-hued the play may be, there is a grand craic o’ one-liners and character-based playfulness. Jones’ dialogue is bright and winning while occasionally unleashing some killer one-liners.
The enjoyment of the evening is furthered by John Hudson’s focused direction – pacing and delivery being the basis of this kind of amiable duplicity.
The two-hander is a collection of anecdotes held together by dueling monologues as the characters explain what is going on in their minds. The “two care workers – two nobodies,” Francis (Elinor Holt) and Loretta (Annette Loiselle), set off a series of unfortunate events that pull them into a life of guilt and duplicity. The two biddies look after Davy McGee – a very elderly gent (who is never seen). His life has become very circumscribed since his stroke, – betting on the races, reading the Daily Mail and listening to Frank Sinatra sing “Fly Me To The Moon.”
One morning when Loretta is held up, Francis deposits “wee Davey” in the bathroom. Loretta arrives and the two chat pleasantly about this n’ that. Francis is proud of her son’s big success in selling pirated DVD’s and Loretta complains about how the depression has long kept her bricklayer husband out of work – watching him “shrink” before her eyes.
Completely forgotten in all this is poor old McGee. When the ladies do remember, they pry open the door only to discover that the elderly geezer has expired. Frances, who is the more forceful of the two, may be stricken by the event but not so much that she’s doesn’t note the two have access to Davy’s pension and, what’s more, he has just won big at the races. She persuades the more fragile and panic-sicken Loretta that it wouldn’t really be dishonest to wait a few hours for the check to arrive before they tell of the old guy’s demise. They rationalize their iniquities by chanting the mantra, “It’s what Davy would have wanted.”
But the two are not schooled in the art of deception and, indeed, except for a smattering of police terms picked up from television, are quite inept at it. The comedy quickens and the laughs increase as their momentary ethical lapse escalates into a major criminal enterprise.
The whole 135 minutes (with intermission) is something of a shaggy dog story but, as in that comic storytelling device, it’s all in the telling and no one tells a tall tale better than the Irish.
The two fine performers demonstrate impeccable comic timing and play off each other well. Francis, the scheming instigator, could be regarded as cynical and shady but Holt manages to locate a basic decency in the old girl that keeps her this side of malicious. Loiselle’s bewildered Loretta is a study in quavering guilelessness but she too has been coarsened by poverty and the hard life she’s lived. Although later the evening veers dangerously close to fantasy, the two anchor the characters in the hard-scrabble lives of real people who have seen their dreams beached on the rocky shores of privation and poverty. They may be two nobodies but this sharp, smart and sensitive character-tuned comedy/drama gives them a cogent voice.
Fly Me To The Moon, a production of Shadow Theatre, plays in the Varscona Theatre in Old Strathcona through May 13. Purchase tickets HERE.
