Age Of Arousal...Too many cooks spoil the sauce.

Age of Arousal (AOA) by Linda Griffiths was inspired by 'The Odd Women' by George Gissing. It's directed by Sarah Garton Stanley and playing at Centaur to April 19th.

AOA offers an opportunity to highlight the talents of the under-worked actresses of Montreal. The play is well performed by a stellar ensemble cast that includes Clare Coulter as Mary Barfoot. I found it very difficult to forget her very recent appearance on the Segal stage in her role in Buried Child and was never quite sold on her character here in AOA. Alison Darcey is by far the stand out performance in this production and it is more than well worth the price of a ticket just to see her quality 'Broadway worthy*' portrayal of Rhoda Nunn...I had only ever seen her perform in a few roles: Bash and girlsgirlsgirls and have heard tell of Her talent as an actress; I’m more familiar with her talent as a director: Bash, Life Is A Dream. Other performances in AOA by: Diana Fajrajsl, Gemma James-Smith, and Leni Parker** as are all enjoyable; I would have liked to see the character of Virginia Madden** further developed though. Julian Casey as the only actor on stage holds his own amongst these strong female characters. *It's only a matter of time!

However where the production fails dramatically is in the design with an overbearing set that completely encumbers the stage and overwhelms the cast with copious amounts of set changes (20 in fact) and forced blocking; Added to this is a sound track that at times becomes annoying and unnecessary. Equally aggravating are the overstated and distracting costumes, particularly those of the two leads. Finally the light design which starts out from the get go trying to keep up with the text and the set- scene changes, eventually becomes as annoying as a strobe light; The 'special effect' used to signal the audience when we're hearing the characters inner thoughts versus just hearing their lines. This design was condescending to an audience that could 'get it' without being spoon-fed this added visual. Surely the Centaur audiences are intelligent enough to figure it out on their own. If the play's text and the direction wasn't enough to clearly signal the differentiation then the problem must be much more deep routed. What is otherwise a pleasantly entertaining production, the play itself isn't a powerful enough text to hold its own when pinned up against all of these distractions. And what was with that horrible choice of song for the finalé?