THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: May 07, 2004
San Diego seems to have become a
spawning ground for knockout solo performances. Two years ago, at the La Jolla
Playhouse, the first Page to Stage work-in-progress featured the glorious
star-turn of Jefferson Mays in this year's Pulitzer Prize-winner, "I Am My
Own Wife." He's sure to be nominated next week for a Tony Award in his
Broadway debut. Also at the Playhouse, Billy Crystal just completed a run of
his still-evolving memoir, "700
Sundays: A Life in Progress." It was a magnificent mix of the uproarious
and the emotional, a laugh-cry fest that should go far. Earlier this year, we
watched in side-splitting awe as David McBean hilariously portrayed 40 New York
eccentrics in "Fully Committed," which is currently making a brief
return visit to Cygnet Theatre and should NOT be missed. And now, along comes
local favorite Rosina Reynolds, giving a stunning, virtuoso performance as
"Shirley Valentine."
A middle-aged, working-class
Liverpudlian, Shirley has an empty nest and a demanding, taciturn husband.
She's taken to talking to the wall, to whom she confides that she's lost her
sense of adventure and her sense of self. She's no longer the rebel she was in
high school; she's frumpy, tired, bored and ignored. She's not a feminist, and
not part of the generation she calls "the clitoris kids." "I've
lived such a little life," she laments. "Who turned me into this?"
And then, her friend hands her a companion ticket to Greece. It's a hard
decision. She's rooted in her humdrum life, expected to have her husband's
dinner on the table at precisely the same time every night. "We never do
what we want to do," she convinces herself. "We do what we have
to do." And yet, Shirley, a kind of disillusioned Everywoman, comes to
realize that this is something she has to do. She takes the plunge…
right into the Mediterranean. In the second act, she's a new woman. She's
"starting to grow again." She's "fallen in love with the idea of
livin'."
When I first saw Willy Russell's 1989
play a dozen years ago, I wasn't ready for it. Whether or not you have regrets,
you have to be at a certain stage of your life to understand where this gentle,
sentimental play is coming from. The wonderfully compelling, heartful Rosina
Reynolds welcomes us into Shirley's life and forces us to look at our own. It's
a sensational performance, that includes a variety of characters and accents.
Under George Flint's sensitive direction, the piece moves at a perfect pace,
alternately snappy and funny, thoughtful, wistful, even tearful. If you know
what I'm talking about, you have to see this play. If you don't, wait a few
years; you'll get there.
©2004
Patté Productions Inc.