>>REVIEW
CHEEK TO CHEEK
Lunchbox Theatre
Starring Kira Bradley and Trevor Rueger
Written by Raymond Storey
Directed by Glenda Stirling
Runs until November 26
Bow Valley Square
Two years after the death of his wife, clutching his assigned table number, Harry Breen (Trevor Rueger) shuffles into the stag night at the Cha-Cha Palace, hoping to meet a nice dance partner, perhaps even someone to share his spare opera ticket with.
He meets Franny Tondino (Kira Bradley), an audacious Cha-Cha Palace veteran who knows the steps of the stag night as well as her foxtrot – tipping the doorman to assure a favourite table and avoiding the desperate and predatory regulars at table two. Both Harry and Franny are in their mid-30s, struggling to move beyond the familiar lives that continue to hold them back, and as their regular meetings continue, they begin to form a complex friendship.
There’s an almost exhausted formula in dating comedies: initial awkwardness gives way to playful revelation, casual acquaintance becomes a meaningful relationship, and by the time the spectre of conflict arises, the happy ending is all but assured. But Raymond Storey’s Cheek to Cheek, currently receiving a revival from Lunchbox Theatre, treats its characters with a sensitivity that allows the play to nimbly dance around the familiar, saccharine ruts.
Harry is introduced as a nervous, fastidious sort, dusting his booth with his handkerchief before sitting, but his subsequent soliloquy shows the quiet dignity with which he carries himself as a suit salesman in a big-and-tall store. And the relationship that forms between Harry and Franny is no simple romance. For these lonely hearts, skirting the familiar bounds between friendship and something more, finding someone is more important than finding a perfect relationship, but just as complicated.
As a couple, Rueger and Bradley complement each other flawlessly, negotiating their frequent dances and the developing relationship between them with equal grace – due in part, no doubt, to the sensitive direction of Glenda Stirling and the seamless integration of dance into the production. Bradley lends Franny an endearing enthusiasm that is not simply ebullience, but a complex emotion tempered by the unsatisfying life that still holds her back. Far from a simple, outgoing foil, she is conscious of Harry’s growing feelings as well as the complications of her own particular barriers. Rueger, meanwhile, is able to convey the desperation of a man who knows he must move on, even as he struggles to maintain the dignity he feels slipping away from him. Grateful for one another’s company, but reserved just the same, the two give performances that will ring true for anyone who has dealt with a relationship less ideal than those in the typical romantic-comedy mould.
Set against the sleek, modernist lines of Brian Chmielewski’s dimly lit bar and a gentle soundscape, Cheek to Cheek is an intimate glimpse into the lives of two heart-wrenchingly earnest people simply trying to stave off loneliness as they dance together. |
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