Reviews
Ilkley Players ‘Dolly West’s Kitchen’ at the Wharfeside Theatre, Ilkley Playhouse
In the excellent Dolly West's Kitchen', Frank McGuiness gives his characters a choice: stand by passively or fight your corner?
Set near the end of World War II in Donegal, near the border with Derry, it is a play which focuses on family feuds as much as the fights of the battlefields.
The lives of the three West siblings are in limbo: Dolly pines after her first love Alec Redding, an Englishman she met as a student, Esther's marriage to Ned Hogan is falling apart and Patrick blanks out his insecurities and doubts by directing his self-loathing outwards towards, in particular, the English.
Mother Rima cannot stand to see her children suffering and, as Alec reappears in Dolly's life, introduces two American GIs to the family.
She knows what she is doing - these two men, Marco Delavicario and Jamie O'Brien, push the buttons with her offspring that she hopes they will.
The presence of the three allied soldiers, along with housemaid Anna, has a tumultuous effect, starting the Wests' own personal world war.
But what will their lives be like as they put together the pieces once the external and internal wars are over?
This is a play of serious ambition.
Whilst largely successful, the sheer scope means some aspects and some characters - notably Anna and Jamie - feel somewhat underdrawn, though that is balanced out by well-judged performances of gutsiness and sensitivity respectively from Rose Lambert and Billy Groom.
But that is a minor quibble in what is largely thoughtful, powerful and enjoyable material.
The star of the show undoubtedly is Rima - a dream of a role in which Jacquie Howard truly excels, with both the comic and emotional elements.
She is the heart and the engine of both the family and the play.
There are also fine performances from Jonathan Shaw as Justin and Phil Howell as Marco, producing one scene in particular of remarkable tenderness.
Central to the play's themes is the relationship between Dolly (Sarah Potter) and Alec (Walter Swan), which is rich with unspoken longing.
Just as Ireland maintained an eloquent neutrality throughout the war, Dolly is passive to a fault and, like her siblings, seems prepared to let things stagnate and go rotten without the intervention of her mother.
Director Miranda Armitage extracts full value for the considerable comedy of the piece and brings a sense of intimacy to proceedings, aided by some understated lighting designed by Richard Speight.
9:06am Thursday 17th April 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
