Fly Me To The Moon: A Canadian Premiere At the GCTC
Photos : Andrew Alexandre
What would you do if you had a chance to pick up some extra, much-needed cash by bending the rules just a little but without really hurting anyone in the process? Money that was owed, say, from a government pension and a bet on a horse race to an elderly, just-deceased man, someone who had been under your care and who, by all appearances, had no heirs?
That’s the situation Frances and Loretta, poorly paid care workers for one Davy McGee, find themselves in when, one Monday morning on their shift, the old fellow dies in his bathroom. Bruised by the recession, the two women in Irish playwright Marie Jones’ hilarious new play dip into that unexpected money pot and suddenly find themselves struggling with more fear and guilt and general madcap confusion than they’d ever imagined possible.
Directed by John P. Kelly, who recently directed Jones’ Stones in His Pockets at The Gladstone, this production is the Canadian premiere of Fly Me to the Moon. It’s a good one.
Mary Ellis plays the coolly logical and domineering Frances, a less-than-enthusiastic worker who is proud of her son’s entrepreneurship (he sells illegal CDs) and quickly spots the financial possibilities when her old charge dies. She’s not without scruples, however, and that gives her a three-dimensionality she might otherwise have lacked.
Margo MacDonald is the nervous Loretta, slow on the uptake, worried about the emotional toll unemployment is taking on her husband, and uncertain that they should take the money. But she comes around to Frances’ way of thinking —“I know Davy in there would want us to do it” — soon enough.
Ellis and MacDonald both give terrifically comedic performances as their characters, inept from the get-go, dig themselves ever deeper into a farcical mire by delaying telling anyone Davy has died, worrying that a nosy neighbour will catch them out, even briefly setting out to make a full confession to the police.
Says Loretta at one point, “I could be arrested for theft, fraud, and murder and it’s not even 4 o’clock.”
Ellis and MacDonald also have enough edge to their performances that the playwright’s bleaker vision — a contemporary Ireland economically and socially adrift — leaves its imprint along with the humour.
There are, too, touches of poignancy. At one point, Frances and Loretta suddenly realize they know nothing about this man for whom they’ve cared for two years except that he likes Sinatra (hence the play’s title) and betting.
At another point, Frances describes Loretta and herself as “just two caregivers, just two nobodies.”
Touches like these draw us ever deeper into the lives of the two, making us care what happens to them when they take the money, when they agonize for having done so — even if it’s just because they’re afraid of being caught — and especially when they bump against the surprise that brings the story to a close………
Fly Me to the Moon directed by John P. Kelly
Great Canadian Theatre Company
At the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre
Continues until Nov. 18. 613-236-5196, gctc.ca.
One Reply to “Fly Me To The Moon: A Canadian Premiere At the GCTC”