Alma DeGroen's 2002 play is a contained, "well-made-play" type piece, played out in real time as four friends come together after the death of the husband of one of them, to talk, drink, commiserate and uncover a few secrets along the way. It's an entertaining example of the genre, with a mixture of humour, rage, and with a fair range of ideas going on - looking at what happened to the women who fought for equality and liberation during the 80s, at fundamental questions about human nature, about aging, about contemporary society and about the nature of betrayals.
papermoon's production does a reasonably strong production of this, justifying the revival largely thorugh the four strong actresses in the leads. All four get their moment to shine - Elaine Noon as the widow-with-more-than-one-secret, hiding under a layer of polite meekness until she breaks; Nikki-Lynne Hunter as the fashionable real-estate agent still seething over her divorce even after acquiring her own younger lover; Alice Ferguson as the PR woman whose attempts to gloss over the situations gets more and more desperate, and Lainie Hart as the one who's whose own morality serves as persistent irritation to the others.
This isn't quite a perfect production - there's a couple of moments where the play's shifting attentions feels a little like gear shifting - but in a case where opening-night-is-also-first-time-with-an-audience, this can only grow and develop further over the next few nights. This isn't a particularly showy production - the set and lighting are nicely functional - but it's a great showcase for the central four actresses who seize the opportunity to play with an evenly balanced set of four meaty roles. Worth catching.
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