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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Theatre: A Round-Heeled Woman

A Round-Heeled Woman has just transferred from the Riverside Studios to the Aldwych Theatre. It is an opportunity for Sharon Gless (of Cagney and Lacey fame) to portray through part monologue / part drama the true story of Jane Juska. Juska is a woman who placed an advertisement in the The New York Review of Books that read: "Before I turn 67 – next March – I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." 

The play, which is based upon Juska's book, goes through some of the encounters that lead to love, heartbreak, rejection and laughs. The audience on Friday night was not prepared for the humiliation arising from this situation. There were audible gasps when one of her male suitors tells her why she needs to get some lubricant. 

But the sharp wit and brutal incisiveness is frequently undermined by a superfluous supporting cast that have little to do, and a set so distracting that it has your mind wondering to ask questions such as, "Why does Juska have a tomb in her front garden?" Maybe it is meant to be a metaphor. But perhaps cutting back on both would enable more time to focus on the central character. 

Still, Gless gives a pretty good performance and it is an enjoyable night. But perhaps the target audience is for those whose last outing was to see Menopause The Musical, although there were plenty of fans from Gless's Cagney and Lacey and Queer As Folk days in the audience... It runs until January. Incidentally Tyne Daly is appearing January in Masterclass... Maybe the two productions should have a mash-up?

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