Theatre Orangeville opens 30th season with ‘The View from Here’

Written By Constance Scrafield

What a terrific show “The View from Here” is, the first of Theatre Orangeville's 30th season. It opened last Friday, Oct. 13 and runs until Oct. 29. Written by and starring Jamie Williams (Skin Flick and others) and Melanie Janzen (Screwball Comedy and others), this couple gives us an evening that is so good it lasts a long time in your head afterwards.

In brief, Michael and Mary have been married for 32 years. Running over a year from New Year's Eve to New Year's Eve, the cleverness of the play and the actors' delivery keeps us laughing, involved and irresistibly loving this adorable couple. 

The magic between them works so well because they are, in fact, a married (to each other) couple, bringing, as the Director of the play, David Nairn said, “their own short-hand.”

In his playwright notes, Jamie Williams admits the idea for this comic view of married life sprung from “our own completely unsexy bedtime routine...a far cry from what I believe our bedtime looked like in our younger days...My aim was to highlight those moments that are at once ordinary and extraordinary in a marriage. It is a love letter to those relationships that endure because of and in spite of ourselves.”

In the course of this year's challenges, Mary's elderly father is slated to retire to a seniors' home, and her dealing with this move, her fear for her father and her repulsion for the place may well ring true in the hearts of many in the audience. 

On the other hand, is the upcoming wedding of their daughter to Rob, a philosophy graduate whose constant output of big words and long-winded rhetoric irritates the father of the bride-to-be.

All that and the sudden closure of the newspaper for which Michael has written over many years forces his abrupt retirement with perhaps unexpected reactions on his part.

Beckie Morris, Set Designer and Production Manager, created a revolve, the device that swings the sets around on stage and is usually round. This one is square, showing the two sets of bedrooms on one side and living room on the other. Propelled to swing between the sets during scene changes and a song plays, its job is really to push the story into its next moment. A simplistic cut-out of a roof and windows is the backdrop. Running across the surfaces is the printed dialogue. A true Beckie Morris for its innovation – the best design for the play.

Louise Guinand's lighting beautifully follows the same theme of the shift in time and life to perfection.

Directing, David Nairn presents us with a show of great timing, a pleasure to enjoy that touches our minds and our emotions. That is his particular skill.

Theatre Orangeville's brilliant creative team pulled it off again to give us the very lovely to look at production.

From the really silly opening to the perfect touch at the end, The View from Here is a must-enjoy couple of hours of theatre.

Jamie Williams ended his notes by reminding us, “It is of course a love letter to, and for my wife, Melanie.”

For tickets, subscriptions and tickets to the ‘Twas the Night Gala, Theatre Orangeville's biggest fundraiser of the year, go to www.theatreorangeville.ca or call the charming folk at the Box Office at 519-942-3423.