What? This wine is made in England? Autumn at Shadow Theatre, a review

By Liz Nicholls, .ca

The co-stars of Autumn, the season finale at Shadow Theatre, have their work cut out for them.

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Resourceful theatre veterans Cathy Derkach and Karen Johnson Diamond have charisma, comic chops, and fortitude. All will be put to the test with this tiring, lop-sided comedy by the Brit playwright Peter Quilter.

You could say that Shadow has a history with Quilter: his best-known hit Glorious!, about the socialite opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins, celebrated for her spectacular lack of talent, got a Shadow production in 2008. In this 2023 Quilter comedy, two estranged sisters, pushing 60, get thrown together to pull off a shotgun wedding for the daughter of one of them — in the backyard of the family cabin once occupied by their late parents.

Kathryn (Derkach), the neglectful mother of the bride, is the demanding, imperious, self-obsessed one, a spoiled serial divorcée whose latest marriage has exploded and left her without bank account, wardrobe and jewelry (pending settlement). She arrives breathless with grievances. Rose (Johnson Diamond) is the good-natured, easy-going one, more placid, more satisfied with her life, the auntie who’s closer to the bride.

Will they resolve their differences? Will ‘family’ prevail? I’m just going to leave that with you. Agonize amongst yourselves.

In a way Derkach has the tougher assignment since Kathryn isn’t so much a character as a continuous barrage of flamboyant, slightly mouldy one-liners about marriage, men, her ex’s, her need for a glass of wine (“it’s just fruit juice with a cork in it”), food habits (“I have low self-esteem; I need the Pringles”), the expensive cosmetic work she’s had done. “I don’t get fat I get liposuction.” Middle-aged? Well OK nearly 60, “but my breasts are only 17.”

Some lines are better than others, but in any case it’s hard work pumping them out as if an actual person were saying them. It makes you appreciate, by default, the uncanny way Neil Simon builds his jokes into believable characters and dialogue. Kathryn is a comic caricature as fake as her boobs. And Derkach, who has a natural warmth about her onstage, is rarely cast that way.

Johnson Diamond, on loan from the Calgary theatre scene and like her co-star with an engaging quality onstage, gets to be the straight man, with a line of wry rejoinders. “You’ve been married enough for both of us,” she tells Kathryn, who keeps pestering her about being single. Or “HG Wells wants his time machine back,” she parries, when Kathryn argues for her own eternal youth. As Rose, who bustles through all the wedding prep while Kathryn pours another glass and bitches, Johnson Diamond has a bit more to work with, as a character. And she gets to be  busy onstage, with all the props.

Karen Johnson Diamond and Cathy Derkach in Autumn, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux

The actors, both likeable and experienced performers, apply themselves with admirable comic energy and timing to making the task at hand somewhat plausible. It’s for director Lana Michelle Hughes, Shadow’s accomplished incoming artistic director, to orchestrate things to create some semblance of chemistry, and dialogue from raw material that pits a character against a caricature.

And the old-fashioned accoutrements of her production , which include a detailed family cabin interior by Even Gilchrist (the fish portraits are hung way too high, the way your parents do, and every chair has a nondescript throw) — assist too. Since the action happens offstage — it’s a garden wedding — Rory Turner’s lighting is a player. And Lindsey Walker assembles a score of familiar pop songs that align, in an uncanny way, with all of the above, and join scene after scene together.

It’s all amusing enough for a while. There’s a sight gag or two. And then, especially when Kathryn starts flirting and giggling with an offstage 20-year-old gardener, you long for a reprieve. As Kathryn says about marriage “it’s fun … for the first year.”

REVIEW

Autumn

Theatre: Shadow Theatre

Written by: Peter Quilter

Directed by: Lana Michelle Hughes

Starring: Cathy Derkach, Karen Johnson Diamon

Where: Varscona Theatre, 10329 83 Ave.

Running: through May 24

Tickets: shadowtheatre.org.