Playwright Mark Crawford’s The Golden Anniversaries is not meanspirited, but it is boring and shallow.
It’s Glen and Sandy Golden’s fiftieth anniversary but, about a week ago, Sandy kicked Glen out of the house and declared their marriage over. Now Glen is living in their summer cottage, where he has lured his wife, hoping for a reconciliation. For the rest of the play, we skip back and forth in time as we watch them celebrate various anniversaries — at the cottage — over the years. (This is not an original format; it’s very much like Same Time, Next Year.)
In the hour-long first act, all Sandy and Glen do is bicker. These characters, whom we’ve just met and about whom we have no reason to care, bicker. And bicker. And bicker. Have I mentioned this goes on for an hour? Or that, although the script tries to be funny, it’s not?
Sandy seems particularly defensive and, by the time we were approaching the intermission, I had a pretty good idea why, so the “big revelation” in Act 2 came as no surprise. It’s a heavy revelation and I’m not complaining about the choice of content; I’m complaining about the predictability and superficiality of the writing. Sandy has barely admitted what’s troubling her before things are fine — or at least as fine as they can be — in the star-spangled summer night.
Peter Anderson (Glen) is an extraordinarily tender and affable actor. Eileen Barrett finds what depth there is to find in Sandy.
Ryan Cormack’s set, the deck in front of Glen and Sandy’s cottage, is appealingly rustic. Very nice trees.
But, overall, such meager ambition feels like a waste of precious theatrical time.
THE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARIES by Mark Crawford. Directed by Arthi Chandra. An Arts Club production playing on the Granville Island Stage until February 15. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: (Photo of Eileen Barrett and Peter Anderson by Moonrider Productions. Set by Ryan Cormack.)
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