Reviews
Adelaide Theatre Guide Review
Galleon's current offering is one of Neil Simon's lesser known works, "Jake's Women", which had its premiere in its present form in 1992 and was made into a film in 1996. Neil Simon is one of America's most successful playwrights for good reason, and this play has all the hallmarks of a Simon play: witty and intelligent dialogue, funny one-liners, and well-rounded and interesting characters. It is successfully brought to life at Galleon by director Warren McKenzie and a talented cast.
Jake is a successful writer but his marriage is starting to fall apart, largely through his poor communication skills and idealisation of his dead first wife. When his wife leaves for a six-month trial separation, Jake retreats into the fertile world of his own imagination. He is joined by imaginary characters, who are real people but speaking Jake's words, or words he wishes they would say, and this leads to amusing situations such as losing arguments he made up himself.
Andrew Clark is strong and carefully controlled in the exhausting role of Jake. He is on stage for all but around 30 seconds of the play and dominates almost every scene with seemingly boundless energy. He keeps the audience's attention throughout and presents a sympathetic, if somewhat neurotic, character. His talking directly to the audience is never over-done, and he is completely believable as the writer more at home in his own imagination than in reality.
Mari Nield plays Jake's current wife Maggie and his imaginary version of her. She handles the switches required with ease and is a strong performer with a good understanding of the character, as well as impeccable comic timing. The scenes between Jake and the real and imaginary Maggie are among the best in the play.
Jake's daughter Molly at 12 is played delightfully by Ellish Devlin and Molly McCormack is equally good as the daughter at 21. The scene in which Jake's imagination has Molly at 21 meeting the mother she has never known is one of the play's highlights. The chemistry between McCormack and Laura Antoniazzi as Jake's first wife Julie is immediate and captivating.
Joanne St Clair is pure delight as Jake's sister and it is a pity the play does not have more for her to do. The talented cast is rounded out by Laurie Mulgrew as the slightly dotty psychologist Edith, and Anita Canala as Jake's girlfriend Sheila.
The set design is simple and extremely effective and using black frames and curtains for five of the six doors helps the audience to distinguish between the real and imaginary characters, as only the real ones use the real door.
Jake's Women is an intelligent comedy rather than a roll-in-the-aisles farce, and there is plenty of depth along with the laughs.
Reviewed by Linda Edwards
Broadway World Review
The Galleon Theatre Group, long ago, decided to present their productions in a BYO supper, cabaret setting, with drinks available for purchase at the bar, and they haven't looked back. Yet again, I attended to find an almost full house of very happy patrons. As this production, Jake's Women, is a Neil Simon comedy, that happy mood was only ever going to get better as the evening progressed.
Jake is a writer with a very active imagination, so much so that the characters that he creates in his mind, his late first wife, his psychologist, his daughter, and others, become real to him. After eight years of marriage, things have become shaky, and his second wife, Maggie, suggests a six month separation. While she is away the lines between real and imaginary become not so much blurred as nonexistent.
We all have important, significant people in our lives, some who have left the corporeal plane, to whom we turn to in sleep, or daydream, wondering what they might say about situation. In Jake's case, his musings conjure more than thoughts and memories; he is faced with a physical presence. Yes, like Jake, we occasionally imagine conversations in our heads, but his refuse to stay there and are with him constantly.
Andrew Clark plays Jake, juggling conversations with his current wife, Maggie, and all of the women that only he, and we, the audience, can see and hear. Clark takes on a huge role, on stage for all but a few seconds during the performance, constantly conversing with one or more of the women. He convincingly conveys Jake's belief in these phantoms that beset him, even to the point of making physical contact with them, or making changes to the conversation to acquiesce to their insistence that it is not what they would have said. It is this, the fact that they seem to have a life of their own, that makes Jakes fantasy different. Clark superbly creates a character that holds the whole thing together as he swings between reality and imagination.
His wife, Maggie, another of the three living people in the play, is played by Mari Nield, and she presents a clear representation of a woman who is frustrated with the lack of attention and intimacy in her marriage to a man who is not living in the present, but in a fantasy world, wishing for the past that is long gone. Neild's wonderful portrayal is of a strong Maggie, a woman who will not settle for second best..
He also turns for advice to an imaginary version of his sister, Karen, well played by Joanne St. Clair, who is obviously the member of the family that got all of the good sense. St. Clair's interpretation of Karen is a down to earth and sensible woman who is fond of her brother, but not afraid to give him sound advice.
Chronology, of course, is of no importance to the imagination and so conjuring up his first wife, Julie, as she was when they were first married, and their daughter, Molly, both as she is now at twenty-one and as she was at the age of twelve, offers no incongruity. Molly, the older version played by Molly McCormack and the younger version played by Eilish Devlin, is/are called up when he needs some family support and encouragement, as well as an opinion. McCormack and Devlin succeed in creating characters that share enough similarities that it is believable that they are the same person, with enough traits that one would expect to see in a child and in an adult, showing clearly that they are at different ages, which is not an easy thing to do.
Edith, played by Laurie Mulgrew, is Jake's analyst and, when he cannot see her in person, he conjures her image up for an instant consultation. One cannot help thinking that some of her actions are straight from Jake's imagination, rather than a factual representation. Mulgrew brings a good degree of medical professionalism and detachment to the role but, although Edith is somewhat austere, there is also a degree of playfulness in Mulgrew's characterisation.
When he summons his first wife, Julie, played by Laura Antoniazzi, we discover the cause of his problems, the reason that he is having trouble maintaining a relationship. He is still clinging to the memory of her as she was long ago, a beautiful young woman full of life and energy, which is exactly the character that Antoniazzi portrays. Antoniazzi gives Clark all that he needs in her marvellous characterisation to enable him to give authenticity to Jake's attachment to Julie. This, of course, may even be an exaggerated memory, amplifying her best qualities and ignoring anything negative.
During the trial separation, Jake has been dating, but with no real connections being made, or any possibility of anything lasting, and Sheila, played by Anita Canala, is the latest in the list. She is also the only other real person in the play. Canala portrays Sheila as a sensible and sincere woman who seems to be hoping for a continuing relationship until, that is, they are suddenly no longer alone. As only Jake can see and hear his fantasy women, she believes that he is talking to her and Canala does a fine job of showing the confusion at the weirdness of their conversation, making a quick getaway.
Where this leaves Jake, his fantasies, and his ailing marriage to Maggie remains to be seen. In typical Neil Simon fashion, there is more to this play than mere superficial comedy. Director, Warren McKenzie, doesn't force the laughs, and takes full account of the depth of the issues within the script. There are plenty of poignant moments between the humorous passages.
The set consists of three rooms, the study, the living room and the bedroom, covering the entire stage, with the main door upstage centre opening into the living room. On either side of the door are cloth covered opening through which the phantom characters enter and depart, suggesting that they simply appear and vanish, with a considerable range of lighting, designed by Luke Budgen, to emphasise a particular room, or create an atmosphere for a scene.
This is another production that Galleon regulars are sure to enjoy. If you haven't seen one of their performances then this would be an ideal time to start.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny
GLAM Adelaide Review
Author Jake has women troubles: they are on his mind; they are in his mind. He only has to think about them to have them materialise and speak the dialogue he gives them. But what happens if they start writing their own conversations?
But what happens if they start writing their own conversations? The women in Jake's life are his second wife, Maggie, who seems about to leave him; his film obsessed sister, Karen; his daughter, Mollie (at the age of 12 and 21); first wife, Julie, who was tragically killed in a car accident; analyst and therapist, Edith; and Shelia, whom Jake has a relationship with during a six month trial separation from Maggie.
Jake's Women is playwright Neil Simon at his best - the play is witty, imaginative, beautifully poignant and moving. Jake's Women is Galleon and director Warren McKenzie at their best -the production is just as witty, imaginative, beautifully poignant and moving as Simon's script.
McKenzie obviously understands Simon and has worked well with his cast to produce eight very different and memorable characters.
The always excellent Andrew Clark is phenomenal as Jake. Clark is on-stage for the whole show (apart from 30 seconds) and never falters or flags. He gives Jake an impish likability and energy that thinly hides neuroses galore and manages to flip between reality, imagination and breaking the 'fourth wall' to talk conversationally to the audience, effortlessly. Clark is an actor who makes one sit up and take notice of him, while thoroughly enjoying his performance.
As second wife, Maggie, Mari Nield has the difficult task of presenting two different "Maggie's", which she handles with aplomb. Joanne St Clair is absolutely wonderful as sister, Karen, and her Brooklyn/Jewish accent is to die for. Eilish Devlin is delightful as 12 year old Mollie; with Molly McCormack matching her beautifully as the older Molly.
Laura Antoniazzi captivates as first wife, Julie; Anita Canala impresses as Shelia; with Laurie Mulgrew being suitably no-nonsense and straight (as her wonderfully coiffed hair) as psychiatrist, Edith.
This is a never-before-seen Neil Simon play as far as Adelaide audiences are concerned, and after seeing this great production of it, one has to wonder why? Yet another feather in Galleon's almost full cap!
Reviewed by Brian Godfrey
Stage Whispers Review
The intriguing set is the first indication that Galleon Theatre Group's latest comedy Jake's Women will be unusual. Dramatic in red and black, dressed impeccably and instantly thought provoking with its single regular doorway and multiple curtained entranceways along the back wall, it ensures one immediately thinks it must have come from a vivid imagination.
That may or may not be the case, but the plot of this lesser-known of Neil Simon's plays is all about just that; an overactive imagination.
Jake is a writer who struggles with the realities of his existence. When his own circumstances overwhelm him he retreats into his book plots and dives deep into the wish list he has in terms of his real life. Here, things are complicated too, because Jake is often confused between the real and the imaginary, especially when it comes to the females in his life and novels.
Director Warren McKenzie and his fine cast do great work and from front-of-house to technical detail, Galleon does its usual fantastic job of providing an enjoyable night out for audience... but this Neil Simon play is not without its issues.
When Simon's Jake's Women was first staged in 1990 it was met with critical reviews, after which the playwright rewrote seventy percent of the text. I'm not sure he quite got the rewrite right either. Perhaps the famous award-winning playwright has been just a little too clever with this play.
Galleon's terrific set delivers intrigue and the plot synopsis also intrigues, however there can be a fine line between intriguing and confusing, especially when you consider audiences have little time to grasp the nuances of a complicated plot. For at least the first half of Jake's Women the writing is a little too confusing and almost frustrating, as various women and a child come and go either in the present by the real front door, or through the soft dark doors of imagination, the present imagined/supposed, the past or even death.
Andrew Clark anchors the story with a terrific performance as the only male character, Jake. Clark is totally believable as a man lost since the early death of his wife and whose imagination attempts to control the females in both his writing and his past and present real life.
Marie Nield gives a natural, nuanced performance as Maggie and is a standout amongst the remaining cast.
Joanne St Clair is an experienced actor and it shows. She is immensely funny as Karen, a lady who never quite conforms to Jake's expectations.
As Jake's late wife Julie, Laura Antoniazzi once again allows us to see her fresh and exciting talent, producing a strong performance.
Molly McCormack is excellent as Jake and Julie's daughter Mollie, at 21-years-old. Young Eilish Devlin is a delight as Mollie at age 12.
Laurie Mulgrew is perhaps a little reserved as Jake's analyst Edith, but this is still a good performance.
Anita Canala has superb stage presence as Sheila and picks up the show's overall pace in her fine main scene with Jake.
As is invariably the case for Galleon Theatre Group, detail is rounded off to perfection with excellent costumes. Unlike many community theatre groups this company is lucky enough to have a resident hairdresser and it shows in the actors' perfect hair and makeup.
Jake's Women requires greater than usual concentration, particularly for a comedy, but thanks to Galleon Theatre Group's professionalism, a skilled director and the excellent ensemble work of the actors concerned, this production is nevertheless an entertaining, funny and often poignant theatrical experience. Enjoy.
Reviewed by Lesley Reed
Theatre Association of SA (TASA) Review
In Jake's Women, Galleon chose an unusual and challenging play. It concerns a severely self-doubting writer who spends much of his time imagining his way through a series of interactions with the six most significant women in his life. Director Warren McKenzie credibly managed the interplay of reality and imagination.
The dominant force was Jake, an enormous and demanding role, played by the versatile Andrew Clark. Jake leaves the stage only once, and that for a brief toilet stop. Clark carried the complex role well. His strengths were patent, showing Jake to be ever vulnerable, either in the calmer introspective moments addressing the audience or in his most exasperated times, when he lost control of the very conversations he himself had invented.
The ensemble worked well with Simon's script which balanced plenty of one-liners against the underlying sadness of Jake's predicament. Sometimes, therefore, the jokes didn't get the fulsome laughs they otherwise might have.
Mari Nield, as Jake's current wife, was confident and consistent in both her real and imagined scenes. Joanne St Claire did well as his flamboyant sister, Karen, frequently evoked to bring him either solace or further doubt. Eilish Devlin and Molly McCormack, playing his daughter Mollie at twelve and twenty one respectively, brought innocence and normality to their scenes.
Laura Antoniazzi was splendid as Jake's deceased wife, Julie, showing a natural ease and empathy in the role. Her long-anticipated conversation with Mollie as an adult was very moving.
The set was simple and functional, using levels to good effect.
Reviewed by Dave Smith
