Review
ZADIE’S SHOES
Alberta Theatre Projects
Starring Dmitry Chepovetsky, Carmen Grant, Lindsay Burns, Trevor Leigh and Kevin Rothery
Directed by Marcia Kash
Written by Adam Pettle
Runs until April 19
Martha Cohen Theatre
Alberta Theatre Projects’ Zadie’s Shoes is a very funny night of theatre about faith and family. It’s also a disturbing play about addiction and bad luck, but one with plenty of laughs thanks to fast-paced direction and faultless casting.
Dmitry Chepovetsky plays Ben, a gambling addict who has lost all the money his girlfriend Ruth, played by Carmen Grant, needs for alternative cancer treatment in Mexico. Ben struggles to win the money back while Ruth struggles to tell her two belligerent sisters about her trip to Mexico.
Desperation leads Ben to find support from two unlikely figures – Eli, a self-styled prophet played by Nicholas Rice as a friendly, grandfatherly type, and Bear, a coarse, small-time criminal, gambler and newly dry alcoholic played by Trevor Leigh in a show-stopping performance.
Director Marcia Kash keeps the clock ticking throughout Zadie’s Shoes. Thanks to John Dinning’s impressive set design, the action moves quickly from scene to scene as settings slide in and out. Kash has assembled an ideal cast to keep things jumping right down to the wire. We share Ben’s tension and Ruth’s uncertainty and, like co-conspirators, we squirm as disaster looms.
Chepovetsky is a sympathetic ne’er-do-well, making it easy for us to share in his dilemma. Grant is impressive in her Alberta Theatre Projects’ debut. Although we feel sorry for Ruth in her fight with cancer, Grant plays her not as a weepy victim, but as a melding of her two sisters – with Beth’s drive and Lily’s quirky sensitivity. Together, Ben and Ruth are a couple we cheer for right up to the photo finish.
Zadie’s Shoes is an unlikely but likeable show. Playwright Adam Pettle weaves comedy around cancer, addiction and family tension. All his characters are gamblers in their own way, wrestling with their faith in themselves and the world around them. He slips in a substantial discourse on fate amid the laughs, while the comedy makes the emotional impact all the more poignant.
Alberta Theatre Projects began this season with a stellar production of Proof. Zadie’s Shoes bookends the season with an equally memorable night of theatre. |
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