Review: PERFECT ON PAPER

by Lynn on February 3, 2025

in The Passionate Playgoer

Live and in person at Uplift Black, 12 Dunlop Street East, Barrie, Ont. Produced by Talk is Free Theatre. Playing until February 8, 2025.

www.tift.ca

Written by Marcia Johnson

Directed by Vanessa Sears

Costumes designed by Claudia Matas

Sound by Maddie Bautista

Cast: Helen Belay

Sydney Cochrane

Arlene Duncan

Griffin Hewitt

Savion Roach

A play of stylish wit and imagination by Macia Johnson given a lively production by Vanessa Sears.

Olivia (Helen Belay) is on her way to a blind date when she is mugged by an assailant who wants her purse. She’s knocked to the ground when a good Samaritan comes to her rescue. He takes her to the hospital and waits to see that she’s ok. His name is Benjamin (Griffin Hewitt) and he was actually her blind date, Benjamin. He saw the mugging and came to her rescue. The knock to the ground resulted in Olivia suffering a concussion.

Olivia is charmed by him and he by her. Olivia is visited by her mother Beatrice (Arlene Duncan) and also by her (Olivia’s) ex-boyfriend, Robert (Savion Roach). The optics are obvious, and addressed by a feather of a line: Olivia is Black, Benjamin is white and Robert is Black.  Beatrice says that the skin colour of Benjamin is not an issue, but she feels that Robert is a better fit for her daughter.

Coupled with this is that Olivia is hallucinating. She imagines another time when a man who looks like Benjamin is a dashing British aristocrat and is wowing a woman. Is this hallucination caused by her concussion or are her worlds colliding? Olivia is a celebrated writer of romance novels, but writes under a pseudonym. Only her mother knows. She has kept this secret for everybody else. How will it all end?

Playwright Marcia Johnson first wrote Perfect on Paper in 2001. It’s her first play and one can hear and see the strong voice, imagination and facility with language that are so clear in such other Marcia Johnson plays as Serving Elizabeth and Binti’s Journey.

Perfect on Paper is funny and witty. The characters are well defined and developed, but it’s Marcia Johnson’s vivid imagination conjuring the story, that shines. A successful writer of romance novels finds herself in a situation where the lines of reality, imagination and mental fog all collide. And it’s wildly funny. It’s a story of relationships and what makes them work or not; it’s about second chances; being true to oneself; being brave; and finding love.

Vanessa Sears is a gifted actor. In Perfect on Paper she proves to be a gifted emerging director as well. She realizes the humour of the piece with her own imaginative staging—a piece of business with a long telephone cord wrapping around various characters, melds Olivia’s real world with her imaginative world, just as one example. The world of the romance novel is deliberately broad, with Griffin Hewitt playing a dashing Edward and Giacomo, a romantic gardener with an uncooperative mustache. Sydney Cochrane plays a demure Felicity in the romance novel scenes and various earnest characters in Olivia’s real-life scenes. In the scenes of Olivia’s ‘real’ world, Helen Belay plays Olivia with confidence, allure, whimsy and terrific humour. Griffin Hewitt plays Benjamin with understated care and compassion. Arlene Duncan plays Beatrice, Olivia’s no-nonsense mother. Savion Roach plays Robert Olivia’s ex-boyfriend who is trying to win her back. Robert is an accomplished investor, but Olivia is a woman who knows what she wants and at the moment it’s not Robert. Savion Roach plays Robert with compassion, understanding and a willingness to change.

The whole production takes place in a compact Yoga studio with the audience sitting around the space. The lights are up for the whole production. The design of the production is spare, efficient and smart. Olivia’s hospital room and her bedroom at home are suggested by two different coloured curtains on the same curtain rod. Depending on the colour of the curtain that was pulled across that is either clearly her hospital room or her bedroom. I loved that cleverness of design. Every person in the audience was smiling throughout the show and at the end. Deservedly so.

Talk is Free Theatre Presents:

Playing until Feb. 9, 2025.

Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.tift.ca

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