Brave and memorable production of familiar story of unrequited love

“LADIES in Love” might have been a better title for this play because “Ladies in Lavender” suggests so much that this play is not about.

Yes, it is about two ageing sisters living their genteel, calm life together of wool winding and evening cocoa by the sea in Cornwall around 1939 but the title gives not a hint of the pain that Ursula (Jan Corby) suffers as she falls in love with their find of a shipwrecked boy, Andrea (Dean Stephenson), nor of the huge understanding and affection shown to her sister by Janet (Julia Ashton), nor of the darkly suspicious atmosphere of the pre-war period when every stranger was an enemy and every foreigner was a threat.

Ashton is a superb addition to the company. Her voice, her body language, her mannerisms, everything in her performance, left us in no doubt that she was the big sister, the one in charge. Yet in the second act, she shows her unfailing concern and affection for her sister.

Witness the quiet way that she slides her hand across to hold Ursula’s as they listen to Andrea in concert, far away now from them — in every way. That simple, subtle gesture says it all. It is a very telling moment.

It would be great if Corby could project her voice more. There was no need to speak her lines so quietly even though she is the downtrodden sister who falls in love with Andrea.

How unseemly and unlikely that a lady of 70-something would fall for a boy of 18 but she does and we know that she is doomed to suffer the pain of unrequited love. Ursula acknowledges her own foolishness but she wants and needs to be so much more to Andrea than just a nurse and carer.

Again, in the second act, Corby came into her own when her body language (endlessly twisting a silk scarf as she spoke, for example) expressed so much of her emotional pain and longing.

The cause of all this pain? Andrea. Stephenson played his role without fault. He was excellent as a drunken young man after the harvest supper, cheeky when he tried to chat up the Russian artist Olga (another foreigner perfectly played by Sigourney Lee), kind to Ursula in the scene where he hugs her, saying that she has been a good friend to him. If only he knew...

But is that not the point of Ladies in Lavender? To highlight the indignities of falling unsuitably in love in one’s later years and to contrast the ultimate kindness of those who truly love us with the cruelty of the self-seeking tunnel vision of the young?

Dr Mead (Michael Mungarvan) ably portrayed his unsuccessful lusting after the young flesh of Olga who remained cool and in perfect character.

It was sad maybe but suitable to see him having to sit with people of his own age, Ursula and Janet, to listen to the concert at the end. Could he not see that Olga was not of his ilk (or age)? They do say that there’s no fool like an old fool.

Jenny Haywood, as Dorcas the maid, has some of the best lines in this play. She lightens the mood every time she potters on to the stage making salient if sarcastic comments. Much of what she says is hilariously outrageous. She deserved more space to speak her lines for her presence is invaluable.

It would be invidious not to mention the brilliant violin playing of Adrian Shaw. What a joy. And well done to Stephenson for appearing to play so well in time with the off-stage music — that must have taken quite some practice.

It was very brave of director Wendy Huntley to take on such a well-known story but she succeeded in making it a memorable production with this able cast. Her use of music to create atmosphere was excellent.

Another of the company’s strengths is its ability to make off-stage as well as on-stage magic happen: the costumes, the sets, the tiny signs of good directing, all were there. An absorbing production of a well-known story.

Bridget Fraser