Women star in CDS comedy
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from March 1994.
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Gabrielle Wheaton and Jacqueline Caunt star in this production, directed by Tony Osborn. There is a supporting cast of seven and a production team of ten or more, but the success or failure of the evening depends primarily on the two women.
Gabrielle plays Lettice, an expert on Elizabethan cuisine and medieval weaponry, with an inborn love of theatre.
When the curtain opens, she is working as a tourist guide at one of Britain's least stately stately homes. In 400 years, she moans, nothing interesting ever happened there. So she embellishes history and ends up losing her job. Jacqueline's character is Lotte Schoen, the inspector from the Preservation Trust who fires Lettice. But she is intrigued by the other woman's romantic worldview. She admires Lettice's refusal to accept the mediocre and second rate, into which so much of modern life seems to have deteriorated.
How the women become friends and form an unusual alliance is almost incidental to the way in which they expose their characters through rich dialogue compellingly delivered.
"Lettice and Lovage", by Peter Schaffer, is a comedy in the traditional sense of the word, entertaining by the fidelity with which it presents life as we all know it. Certain elements that would seem farcical in another context are quite believable here.
Whether the play's overall impact comes from the writer's considerable background knowledge and language skills or from the actresses' abilities or both is best judged during a performance in front of an audience.
But rehearsal on Tuesday night was a strong promise. The reality can be seen tonight, tomorrow and the next two weekends.
