Call me perverse, but I can't wait to see the play Hooked by Carolyn Smart. Why perverse? Because Toronto Star reviewer Robert Crew tore into the single-hander this week, and any writeup that critical means something's afoot and I'd like to see for myself.
Now playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille's Backspace, Hooked is based on a book of poems Smart wrote about seven fairly well known 20th century women, two of them being utterly repulsive creatures, Moors Murderer Myra Hindley and Nazi-loving aristocrat Unity Mitford, both English. Nicky Guadagni - about whom Crew is complimentary - plays all seven women and is directed by Layne Coleman. (full disclosure: I know Carolyn Smart aka Lizzie Violet, although not well.) The other women in the play are Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott, English painter Dora Carrington, Ottawa's Elizabeth Smart, and American writers Carson McCullers and Jane Bowles.
Crew dismisses Hindley, Mitford, Carringtion and Fitzgerald as uninteresting, at least as they appear in this presentation. Once this run is over it would be better if the first two were never heard of again, but I can't see how the last two could ever be considered dull. Carrington, a painter of some repute now but ignored during her lifetime, loved the prominent biographer Lytton Strachey; she also had lesbian affairs, including one with Lady Ottoline Morrell, a close friend of D.H. Lawrence, among others. Carrington was also associated the Bloomsbury Group.
Fitzgerald was the spoiled daughter of an Alabama judge, a Southern Belle, an alcoholic, and a talented writer with exceptional descriptive ability if her diaries, notes and only novel, Save Me the Waltz, are any indication. She was also F. Scott Fitzgerald's muse - and a schizophrenic who died in fire at a clinic. As I said, I'll have to see for myself why Crew thinks Carrington and Fitzgerald don't come to life in this production.
He's more positive about the alcoholic Smart, the Canadian writer from a well-to-do family who loved English poet George Barker and had several children with him. Barker wouldn't divorce his wife to marry Smart, nor would he provide much support for his family. So Smart, ever the pragmatic Canadian, turned to copywriting and journalism to pay the bills. Whether she would have ever written another book as good as By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept had she had the time can't be known. Crew calls McCullers and Bowles interesting characters, but only gives them a short paragraph - one more reason for a look-see.
Hooked runs until May 10th. Mercifully for the shallow of pocket Saturday and Sunday matinees are PWYC - $15 is recommended.
Now playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille's Backspace, Hooked is based on a book of poems Smart wrote about seven fairly well known 20th century women, two of them being utterly repulsive creatures, Moors Murderer Myra Hindley and Nazi-loving aristocrat Unity Mitford, both English. Nicky Guadagni - about whom Crew is complimentary - plays all seven women and is directed by Layne Coleman. (full disclosure: I know Carolyn Smart aka Lizzie Violet, although not well.) The other women in the play are Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott, English painter Dora Carrington, Ottawa's Elizabeth Smart, and American writers Carson McCullers and Jane Bowles.
Crew dismisses Hindley, Mitford, Carringtion and Fitzgerald as uninteresting, at least as they appear in this presentation. Once this run is over it would be better if the first two were never heard of again, but I can't see how the last two could ever be considered dull. Carrington, a painter of some repute now but ignored during her lifetime, loved the prominent biographer Lytton Strachey; she also had lesbian affairs, including one with Lady Ottoline Morrell, a close friend of D.H. Lawrence, among others. Carrington was also associated the Bloomsbury Group.
Fitzgerald was the spoiled daughter of an Alabama judge, a Southern Belle, an alcoholic, and a talented writer with exceptional descriptive ability if her diaries, notes and only novel, Save Me the Waltz, are any indication. She was also F. Scott Fitzgerald's muse - and a schizophrenic who died in fire at a clinic. As I said, I'll have to see for myself why Crew thinks Carrington and Fitzgerald don't come to life in this production.
He's more positive about the alcoholic Smart, the Canadian writer from a well-to-do family who loved English poet George Barker and had several children with him. Barker wouldn't divorce his wife to marry Smart, nor would he provide much support for his family. So Smart, ever the pragmatic Canadian, turned to copywriting and journalism to pay the bills. Whether she would have ever written another book as good as By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept had she had the time can't be known. Crew calls McCullers and Bowles interesting characters, but only gives them a short paragraph - one more reason for a look-see.
Hooked runs until May 10th. Mercifully for the shallow of pocket Saturday and Sunday matinees are PWYC - $15 is recommended.
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