Preview
THE EDIBLE WOMAN
Theatre Junction
Starring Adrienne Smook, Danny Dorosh, Ryan Luhning and Enid-Raye Adams
Adapted by Dave Carley
Directed by Nikki Loach
Runs April 14 to May 15
Dr. Betty Mitchell Theatre (Jubilee Auditorium)
The old adage that "All good things must come to an end" is certainly appropriate in describing Theatre Junction’s season finale.
The Edible Woman is not only the company’s last show this season, it also marks the end of a 12-year run at the Jubilee Auditorium’s Dr. Betty Mitchell Theatre. As part of the upcoming renovations to the auditorium, TJ is losing its intimate theatre space. It is currently finalizing a deal to purchase the Grand Theatre downtown to serve as its new venue.
In contemplating the loss of the Betty Mitchell, director and TJ interim artistic director Nikki Loach can’t suppress a pout, even as she eagerly works on the staging of Margaret Atwood’s classic. "It’s definitely the end of an era for us," she says. "What Theatre Junction has done has been very important."
Adapted by Ontario playwright Dave Carley from Atwood’s 1969 debut novel, The Edible Woman presents something of a departure from the TJ status quo in that Loach needed to look beyond the ensemble to cast the production.
"We needed a cast of twentysomethings," she says. "We have (ensemble members) Ryan (Luhning) and Adrienne (Smook), but everyone else is new."
The newcomers are Danny Dorosh (whose credits include Sage Theatre’s Lord of the Flies), Enid-Raye Adams (seen in TJ’s Henry IV, Part 1), Nate Prochnau (Mob Hit’s Down Dangerous Passes Road), Iam Coulter and Michael Scholar Jr. "The cast is a very young, very energetic, very creative group," says Loach.
The Edible Woman is a pet project for Loach, who pitched it to artistic director Mark Lawes when the season was being planned last year. "He wasn’t too sure about it, but I was very passionate about it," she says. "When I read the play, I had an immediate connection with the main character, Marion, and I thought this is a story that needed telling. I think Calgary will like this."
The story takes place in Toronto in the 1960s and revolves around Marion McAlprin (Smook), a capable, sensible woman whose life is progressing according to plan: she has a bachelor of arts degree and a good job that she will quit as soon as she marries her lawyer fiancé, Peter (Dorosh).
Somehow, though, Marion finds herself off-kilter and her life begins spiralling away from the standards that are expected of her.
"I think the theme of the play is living in the craziness of the world, but finding your real self among it," says Loach. "It’s set in 1965, between the conservative era of the proper, trophy housewife and the free love of a later time, but I think it’s very relevant today.
"I had a huge reaction to it and found myself aligned with Marion," she says. "I think many women are still pushed into a way of life – sometimes they can’t control that. Women have a biological need to get married and have children – child-bearing years are limited and they don’t want to miss that. Men don’t have that pressure."
Maybe because of that pressure, Marion finds her life comically spinning out of control. She sees images of Peter hunting her down and capturing her. She feels as if the people around her are consuming her.
"It’s a time not long after Dr. No came out and for men, the new cool was James Bond," says Loach. "They’re chauvinists and their treatment of women was sometimes embarrassingly shallow by today’s standards. Peter describes having a final party as ‘a free man.’ He tries to mould (Marion) into a lawyer’s wife and it wasn’t that long ago that a lot of people did that. And yet, it’s almost a whole other society now."
As well as being Theatre Junction’s final Betty Mitchell show, The Edible Woman also marks the end of Loach’s stint as interim artistic director (Lawes, who spent a year working abroad, returned to Calgary in December).
"I enjoyed working with the women in the office and the board of directors," she says of her time as boss. "The board gives so much support and you realize there’s a whole machine behind you. You realize that, if it wasn’t there, you wouldn’t exist." |
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