THEATRE REVIEW

FEBRUARY 2025 | Volume 260

 

I think of playwright Mark Crawford as a rural Canadian Neil Simon. He writes relationship comedies set in Ontario’s cottage country. Two of his earlier plays, Bed & Breakfast and The Birds and the Bees, have been audience favourites at the Arts Club: very funny with some dark shading to give them added weight.

The Golden Anniversaries, a two-hander, is a comedy of coupledom like the previous two. But despite the charming performances in Arthi Chandra’s production, the gags fall flatter here and the laughs are more strained against a darker background.

We’re on the deck outside the lakeside cottage of the Goldens, Glen (Peter Anderson) and Sandy (Eileen Barrett), where Glen is getting ready to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. They have spent all fifty at this woodsy cottage (Ryan Cormack designer). But things have recently gone sour. Sandy has kicked Glen out of their house in the city. He wants to reconcile but she’s adamant that they remain separated. He pleads, she resists, they talk about their problems and flashback to earlier anniversaries that reveal the joys they had in their marriage as well as focussing some of the strains and crises in their relationship.

Glen is a workaholic with anxiety and money issues.He worked his way up from selling cars to owning a dealership. Sandy was a teacher, frustrated by her job and motherhood.She felt stuck because she badly wanted to write. In later life she has become a successful author but still feels unsatisfied. For her, their relationship seems the crux of the problem.

Both Barrett and Anderson are sympathetic actors with very good comic timing. The dynamic transitions from flashbacks to present time also generate laughs, helped by Alexandra Caprara’s quick lighting changes.

But much of the play is taken up with Sandy’s anger and recriminations. And when the second act moves into even darker territory, you start to wonder whether the play is really a comedy at all. It’s a chronicle of lives lived across time, an arc that doesn’t necessarily bend towards joy.

 

 

 

get in touch with vancouverplays:

EMAIL US

SUBMIT LISTINGS

 SUBMIT PREVIEW

 ADVERTISE WITH US