Live and in person at the Huron Country Playhouse, Grand Bend, Ont. Playing until July 28, 2024.
Written by Norm Foster
Directed by David Nairn
Set by Beckie Morris
Costumes by Joanna Lee
Lighting by Jeff JohnstonCollins
Cast: Valerie Boyle
Elva Mai Hoover
Rob McClure
Norm Foster is an equal opportunity writer, with a huge heart. He first wrote a play called: Jonas and Barry in the Home about two vastly different men who meet in a senior’s home and become friends. He says he had such fun writing it he wrote another play, Doris and Ivy in the Home, this time focusing on two women. The plays are not carbon copies of the other.
Doris and Ivy in the Home is about two women, who couldn’t be more different, but manage to find themselves living in Paradise Village, a retirement home in Alberta. Doris Mooney is a boisterous, fun-loving retired prison guard from Alberta. Ivy Hoffbauer is a disgraced former Olympic skier originally from Austria. These two women are as different as the day is long, but as always happens, life throws us a curve and we befriend people we never expected to get close to, just like Doris and Ivy.
Both women were married at one point. Doris stayed married to her husband but it seemed a loveless marriage until he died. Ivy married often and not successfully. Ivy is being pursued in the home by Arthur but she is not ready to accept his ardent advances, but they are friendly.
As with all his plays, Norm Foster sees the humour and humanity in the ordinary, easy-going situations in life. Doris, as played by Valerie Boyle is lively, irreverent, and sees humour in everything. Often the humour comes from Doris’s robust laugh at most things. As Ivy, Elva Mai Hoover is very proper almost stand-offish, except when having to correct Doris when she keeps thinking Ivy is from Germany and not Austria. Ivy is still smarting at the humiliation she endured at the Olympics when she had an accident on the run. She has never lived it down. So, yes, she’s a bit stand-offish. Both women form a bond that plays off the other. They find a common ground and appreciation of the other. As Arthur, Rob McClure is always smiling and pleasant. He is smitten by Ivy and gently but steadily pursues her.
The whole production is directed with impish delight by David Nairn. He has meticulously realized the humour in the play. For example, there is an extended scene with Doris and Ivy standing side by side looking off into the distance, observing a man and a woman ‘going at it’ in the bushes. Both are residents of the Seniors Home. Both Valerie Boyle as Doris and Elva Mai Hoover as Ivy watch in amazement, horror, disbelief and hilarity at the two in the distance. Boyle and Hoover react in unison and with little touches that add to the humour of the scene, all under the watchful eye of director David Nairn.
Beckie Morris has designed an imposing set of the patio of the Seniors Home, along with comfortable furniture. I did find it odd that there were no plants out there. Just a quibble. The costumes by Joanne Lee are comfortable and stylish for the three seniors, with the garb for Doris is more sporty and flowing.
Doris and Ivy in the Home is a sweet play about two characters you would never imagine would be friends, and when they do, it’s as natural as anything.
Drayton Entertainment Presents:
Plays until July 28, 2024.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes (1 intermission).