Evalyn Parry

Having been lucky enough to see Gertrude and Alice at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto during its 2nd run September 15 - October 7, 2018 it is difficult to separate the reading experience from the live theatrical one. For one thing, the superb immersive and interactive set design by Sherri Hay (new to this 2nd staging) is not at all evident on the written page. And it is impossible to convey the sharp comedic delivery of the dialogue and the interaction with the audience by co-writers/co-performers Evalyn Parry (as Gertrude Stein) and Anna Chatterton (as Alice B. Toklas).

Still, this play script is a solid documentation and souvenir of the performance as it includes not only the play text but also a copy of the schoolbook cahier with its historical timeline and notes which is distributed to the theatre audience and serves as the programme notes that the audience are often instructed to refer to by the actors.

The collaborative duo of Parry and Chatterton, together with director Karin Randoja, have done as thorough a job of historical distillation into the space of a 75 minute theatrical work as one could hope to imagine. I'm a bit of a Lost Generation (a blanket term of Gertrude Stein's for the post-World War I generation that was adopted by Ernest Hemingway in the epigram of "The Sun Also Rises") nut and can say with some knowledge that the amount of research and reading that went into this production is quite remarkable. It does also make a big difference that the works of Stein and Toklas are in the public domain in Canada and can be thus liberally quoted in the text. But the original texts as well are just as Steinesque and would likely easily pass a blindfold test.

Kudos to all for a wonderful theatrical and literary experience!

Link (This will likely only be active until shortly after the play run ends Oct. 7, 2018)
http://buddiesinbadtimes.com/show/gertrude-and-alice-2018/… (altro)