Shirley Valentine by Will Evens and Valentine adapted by Alan Ayckbourn
A letter of appreciation from a member of the audience
Dear Irving Stage Company
My wife and I have just returned home from the last night of your production of Shirley Valentine and we're both simply overwhelmed! What a magnificent evening by turns so funny, so bittersweet, so poignant, so profound and as the lines remind us reaching out to all ages, all genders. As a man who decided in mid life to bid farewell to the City rat race and find work closer to home and my wife and children, to touch life, this play has always been close to my heart but tonight you transcended every previous impression. My wife and I sat absolutely enthralled (disconcerted only once when Jackie looked me straight in the eye ..front row right ... and started talking to me as her rock!) throughout by one of the most moving performances I have enjoyed in 30 years of theatre-going I must say I alway's counted the magical Miss Collins' interpretation rather special but I must confess I will never again be able to watch it without a sense of the many limitations Jackie's tour-de-force exposed in the film version and also a wistful sense of wouldn't it be wonderful if you could relive again that magical night at the Guildhall on 22nd October 2005 when something rather special happened. Well it took 20 years for the RSC Nicholas Nickleby to surface on DVD and I see wonderfully Derek Jacobi's Hamlet from the 1980s is finally released with the BBC Shakespeare Edition on 13th November. I hope Jackie won't have to wait so long!!
Jackie deserved a standing ovation - apart from the incredible feat involved in simple memorising the part, the sheer intelligence, vocal range, the deft characterisations, the heart-felt sincerity and intensity of her portrayal of Shirley Valentine reached out to everyone, male and female in the audience, touching so many common chords of our experience of living so much for others that you cease to know who you really are (so often but not exclusively a woman's experience). Jackie I must say seemed so in control of this part she appeared to be living it as if born to play it.For all the obvious hard work of long hours learning and rehearsing (theatre's own blood, sweat and tears) in bringing this portrayal to life and to the stage for us all to enjoy and be so stirred, a big, big thank you from my wife and I. How we look forward to seeing Jackie on stage again.Please I hope you will not consider such praise exaggerated (because it most certainly isn't - the measure of a fine performance is the number of years afterwards you are reminded of it and feel prompted by the recollection to see life and all its possibilities anew: Jackie's was very much of that order) but of all the highlights of my own life of theatre-going, the RSC Nicholas Nickleby, Derek Jacobi as Hamlet and later as Cyrano, Olivier as Lear, Frances de la Tour as Joan, Jackie's intimate and powerful portrayal will remain etched in our memories always. God bless and our warmest best wishes for the company's success - we haven't explored the website yet but hope when we do to find some way of lending our support to your wonderful work very soon. Yours Sincerely
Peter and Cosimina Tron
 |
 |
