THE
GUID SISTERS
Playwright - Michel Tremblay
Translators - Bill Findlay and Martin Bowman
Director -Gowan Calder
Company - Common Force Community Theatre in association with
The Netherbow Arts Centre
Venue - Netherbow Theatre 43 - 45 High Street Edinburgh
Box office 0131 557 9579
Dates - 11 - 16 June at 7:30pm
Reviewer - Kenny Morrison
This well directed community theatre piece is a colloquial Scots translation
of a French Canadian play, where almost all the actors are on stage
throughout and most of them do very well.
Germaine Luazon, very well played by Jackie Callan, dreams of
improving her home, having won 1,000,000 stamps, which can be swapped
for luxury goods. She enlists the help of her friends and family to
stick the stamps to the necessary coupon books and the drama unfolds.
Many of the stamps are inevitably stolen exposing jealousy and hypocrisy
in her friends, and more subtly in the Catholic Church. At the end of
the first act, Madame Luazon’s sister, a prostitute, appears and we
are given some real lessons in hypocrisy and the place of marginalized
groups in society.
The set is a simple room, with a central table around which the cast
sit for most of the play. Frequent monologues are given by each character,
in a spotlight as they tell the truth to the audience about their lives,
feelings and desires. Lots of unison speaking emphasises the desperate
situation that these women feel collectively in, conveying a powerful
message. The play filled with comic moments and characters, is added
to in translation by keeping the French names and the Scots/French pronunciation,
particularly in one long monologue, is extremely funny.
The silent old lady, Alan J Little, in the wheelchair is a wonderfully
wicked character, adoring her status as someone of years and experience,
who is naughty throughout – and enjoys it. Jo Jo Sutherland a
very fine actress play another of Germaine's sisters, Rose, this character
with her crude and vulgar anecdotes and way of speaking, is at once
the most amusing and most tragic of all. Although some of the acting
was far from perfect, especially from the younger members of the cast,
this is a very worthwhile production and well worth a visit.
© Kenny Morrison 11 June 2001
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