This review of Rope’s End, which will be performed at the Orillia Opera House beginning this week, was submitted by John Challis, a local writer, editor and theatre buff.
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Toby Boone is a bit of an also-ran: he’s the character nobody remembers from school – the last to be picked for the baseball team, the one convinced that he has no significant role in the world.
As the curtain rises on Douglas Bowie’s Rope’s End, opening on April 5 at the Orillia Opera House, Toby (Ian Munday) is sifting through a shoebox of childhood souvenirs, and using them to itemize the failures in his life. Not the least of those failures is the crush he has harboured for 31 years on the angelic Marissa (Marine Hayes), a girl who may or may not remember he ever existed.
In theatre, or any type of literature, Toby’s character is in crowded company. From Charlie Brown yearning for the little red-haired girl, to poor Pip, teased and tormented by Estella in Dickens’ Great Expectations, the soul tortured by a love that never quite connects is a time-honoured trope.
As often as they appear, though, we in the audience ache for the losers in love. We’ve all been there. George Elliot in Middlemarch, described it beautifully; “What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”
Or, as Charlie Brown put it, “nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.”
So, when Toby screws up the courage to see Marissa after 31 years, we can’t help but hope for the best for the lunk.
Marissa, on the other hand — well Marissa is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. A beauty with a past. To give much more away about her would spoil too much of Rope’s End’s complex and winding plotline.
As with any two-hander, being on stage through an entire show is a challenge. But playwright Douglas Bowie asks even more from the two characters, as they work their way through a lifetime of personality changes in the show. They are, at turns, cute and naïve as children, then slightly life-weary and skeptical as they reunite – and all the stages in between.
Ian Munday is a familiar face on Orillia stages, capable of switching from the tragic, as John in Calendar Girls, to slapstick as Brave Sir Robin in Spamalot. Elasticity of character seems to come naturally to him, and his Toby goes through transformations both painful and triumphant.
Munday is opposite a new face in Mariposa Arts Theatre, Marnie Hayes. For Hayes this is likely the most challenging theatrical part she has tackled — her bio describes her as being involved in street theatre as a political activist. She is equal to the task, working her own magic onstage, switching from the bright-eyed child to a mother with a sad surprise.
Christine Killing has been involved with Huronia Players in Midland for a number of years, but this is her first turn at directing with Mariposa Arts Theatre. She brings a subtle, invisible hand to this production, letting a simple script guide the show through some complex turns of plot.
“It was a treat to have Marnie audition for the part,” said show producer Gayle Carlyle, “and to have Christine Killing offer to direct. Small community theatre can’t thrive without new people constantly coming forward. Both Christine and Marnie have brought some thrilling new talent to MAT.”
Performances take place at the Orillia Opera House Studio Theatre and run Thursday to Saturday April 5-7 at 7:30 p.m. and April 12-14 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on April 8 and 15. Call 705-326-8011 to purchase tickets or order online at www.orilliaoperahouse.ca.
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