If ever there was a time when we needed to let go and laugh, that time is now. Thank you ACT of Davie! Our much loved, local community theater’s talented play director, Carla Zackson Heller, invited Sunday’s sold-out audience to escape their worries, turn off their electronic devices, and take a trip to lovely Provence, in the South of France. We eagerly obliged.
ACT opened its 2024/25 Season with A NIGHT IN PROVENCE by Robin Hawdon. Hawdon is an English playwright, novelist and actor/director whose comedies are extremely popular in the UK, France, and internationally; we were about to discover why. No company could do better justice to the “fast pace and comic complexity of his plot lines combined with an essential humanity and reality of his characterization” than ACT of Davie, whose reputation for staging and acting excellence has only grown under the leadership of producer/board president Dana Fredebaugh for the past eight years. I’ve said it before, and I’ll shout it again from the rooftops: If they didn’t call themselves “Actors Community Theatre,” you’d never know!
Time to head to the French Riviera. Act I sets the location by playing “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem (sound design, ops & A.D. by Bill Heller). The raised stage showcases fully appointed living and dining sections, doors leading off to a “kitchen” and three “bedrooms,” and a screened “pool” area positioned down at our level, to the side. (Set design by artistic director Christopher Harrington with lighting and ops design by Mark Demeter, and all stage managed by Elizabeth Digati.) I must add that there’s lots more enjoyable music in the air when each scene change is accompanied by a French rendition of a Beatles melody. The Fab Four’s iconic songs sound so much sexier when sung in French!
We first meet the British couple from London who’ve booked the luxurious villa with an ocean view in Provence for their two-week holiday. Wife Judy (Elizabeth Garrard) enters first and is super-impressed by the classy, “posh” space but especially the well-appointed kitchen. Her out-of-breath, heavy-luggage-toting husband Fred (Daniel Sanchez) follows, drops what’s mostly his wife’s suitcases, and immediately heads for the ocean view that is, actually, as advertised. And we immediately witness some of the issues with their marriage.
Fred feels this time away from children and work obligations in a paradise setting will rekindle their romance (i.e. much neglected sex life) and sets their luggage down in the master bedroom, to claim it for themselves. It’s our first inkling that they await others (two smaller bedrooms with a shared bath lie at the opposite end). He’s ready to get right down to some hanky panky but his wife keeps pushing him off, needing to wash up first in what he sees as endless hours in the bathroom. These two are obviously at odds, especially romantically.
unanticipated house guests, played by Bill Battaglia, Daniel Sanchez, Elizabeth Garrard,
Bob Sharkey, and Nancy Andrade. Photo by Bill Heller.
But they both agree they’ve got first dibs on the master bedroom when suddenly confronted by a French couple from Paris intent on staying at “their” holiday villa and kicking them out. Yvette (Mihaela Zaharescu) and Maurice (Bill Battaglia) aren’t just another couple who’d been mistakenly assigned the villa by the booking agent, they are the actual owners! But they’d neglected to inform their agent of their last-minute plans, ergo, the British couples’ booking.
Not only do the French owners insist the Brits take off to another hotel (which being the season, they claim are all booked and, besides, THIS is the villa they’d chosen and paid for), but if they are to share the house and make the best of it, they absolutely want their bedroom back! It’s great fun to hear the couples go at each other to the point of fighting “the whole of French history,” citing Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher vs. Jacques Chirac … and on.
They do finally come to a truce, agreeing to share the place for the two weeks. Maurice tells Fred he can pay half rent and Fred comments, “It’s called the common market. If you don’t like it, you’re always free to leave, like Brexit.” (Maybe there’s to be no vacation from politics for us, but it feels a lot more palatable when set overseas.) And amidst all the shouting, we begin to get hints of attraction between the spouses – not toward each other but to their adversary’s husband and wife.
There’s still more conflict to come from the mixup. Judy and Fred must now tell Yvette and Maurice that yet another couple (friends they’ve been sharing vacations with for years) are expected to arrive any minute. Yvette is especially upset at the news, given that these two – oh the horror – are Irish! She again threatens her husband that at the first sign of trouble, she’s heading straight back to Paris. But they agree to wait in the master bedroom (which with some conciliatory maneuvering on Judy’s part, the couples have agreed to occupy for one week each; the owners are first) while Fred and Judy explain the extra housemates circumstance to their friends before making introductions.
Judy is optimistic, feeling flirtatious Moira (Nancy Andrade) will be won over as soon as “she meets Gerard Depardieu.” Fred adds, “As Maurice here says, it will be a test of the European Union.” Or as risque Shaun (Bob Sharkey) bluntly reflects: “All nations shall come together – as long as the bed-springs hold out!”
Now that we’ve met all three nationalities, I must pay my highest compliments to dialect coach Francis Allen for helping our actors, all local Americans, speak in perfect – and not too strong (so easily understandable) – British, French, and Irish accents. And Bravo to the experienced actors for your skill in portraying the play’s characters with such passion and believability, and with so many well-timed witticisms – all in a foreign accent – to boot!
Along with the disruption of more unexpected houseguests, the audience is shocked rather early in the play by the discovery of a long-running extramarital liaison. I won’t tell who’s involved as you’ll find out soon enough. And then there are all the other obvious, and not so obvious, simmering flirtations among the housemates. Will they be acted upon? After a night of over-indulgence in fine wine and spirits, they decide that when in France, to do as the French, and go skinny-dipping in the pool – though it appears none of the married couples take the plunge with each other – does infidelity ensue? Will their marriages survive? Can a bold and honest public reckoning overcome thoughts of revenge sex and bring them back to their senses? Or at the very least lead to awareness of the need for freshness and romance in any long standing relationship?
(Judy), Nancy Andrade (Moira), and Bill Battaglia (Maurice). Photo by Bill Heller.
