Ottawa Fringe 2014: Women Who Shout at the Stars

Photo from the Kingston Whig Standard.Carolyn Heatherington.

The Story: Discovering yourself is a lifetime slog as we are reminded in this satisfyingly textured memory piece written and performed by Carolyn Hetherington. An accomplished stage/film/television actor who, at 83, is performing her first-ever fringe show, Hetherington revisits growing up – and older – under the often-conflicting influences of her mother Gwen, a difficult, suicidal socialite with a waspish tongue and a fondness for gin, and her nanny Edie whose early life as a scullery maid helped forge her into a loving but tough woman. Gwen is especially rich and complex, and the mother-daughter relationship a fraught one.

Pros: Hetherington gives an eloquent, measured performance throughout, her self-discipline a brake on the self-indulgence into which a lesser actor might have slid. Small things – the angle of a foot, the dropping of a ribbon on the floor – tell us almost as much about a character as do their words. Hetherington understands patience, silence and how to recreate an era (the 1920s onward) now long gone.

Cons: Occasionally confusing as to who is speaking.

Verdict: A smart idea finely executed.

Women Who Shout at the Stars

Goombay Productions, Ottawa

PLays at the Studio Leonard-Beaulne