Redtwist Theatre

Redtwist Theatre > Lettice & Lovage > Press Release > Show Photos > Reviews

Click logo to read reviews below.

	Highly Recommended	Filled with charm & wit	4 stars
4 Masks	three cheers	Recommended	4 stars
4 Masks	★★1/2	Pure comic delight	unending spirit

4 Masks
October 2009 Theatre Review by Alan Bresloff,
contributor to www.Steadstylechicago.com

Redtwist Theatre is one of our wonderful little storefront theater ensembles. The new season is filled with psychological thrillers starting with a wonderful piece by Peter Shaffer ("Equus"), "Lettice and Lovage". This is the story of two English women and how their crossing of paths changes their lives forever. Director Steve Scott cleverly utilizes the intimacy of the Redtwist stage, with a marvelous set designed by Jack Magaw. We are treated to some fine acting by this small cast. Lettice is given a delicious portrayal by the lovely Millicent Hurley, who won my heart by the third tour group in the first act. Lotte is played by the always reliable Jan Ellen Graves, who can handle roles of all types without ever being typecast. The three other ensemble members all do their part in completing the picture as Scott painted it. Tom Lally, in several tourist roles with very little to say, says a lot; Maura Kidwell is always a treat to watch on stage and makes each moment count; and Jim Morley does a standout job as Lettice's solicitor in the third act. Each does their job to perfection.

In fact, one might say that we as audience members have anticipations as to what we can expect when attending a theater. Redtwist has proved over the past few years to be able to exceed the expectations and continues to do so with this wonderful production. Erin Fast's costumes are very fitting, Christopher Kriz's Sound and Christopher Burpee's lights truly add to the overall picture painted by the playwright as directed by Scott. And in this production the props are very important, so a hip-hip-hooray for Deborah Lindell.

The story itself is a gem. Lettice is employed at a tourist attraction that is very boring. As a tour guide she has found that by adding to the history of the manor, she gets more tips and thanks you's from those who visit. Lotte is an official in the Preservation Trust, Lettice's employer, and when she finds out about the non-historical tours, she must let Lettice go. As they talk, Lotte feels guilt and goes to Lettice's home to try and help her find a new position, one where her talent may be acceptable. The two women bond as they learn about each other and drink a special brew concocted by Lettice in which the herb "lovage" makes it a special drink.

Their lives change from this second meeting and as they get into the third act, the twists and turns are both humorous and passionate. The interplay between these two women is sparkling and the clever direction has you wanting more of them. Despite the 2 1/2 hours, I found myself not wanting to have it end, so delightful were these characters. This might just be lightning in a bottle for theater-goers, another brilliant production of another Peter Shaffer script at Redtwist. I will say that his plays do work well in a smaller venue, but the small theater does limit the number of theater audiences who get to experience this wonderful piece. So I suggest you get on the phone and call 773-728-7529 or email reserve@redtwist.org.

Highly Recommended
Tom Williams, October 10, 2009

“Enlarge! Enliven! Enlighten!” – Lettice Douffet’s motto for living
Two excellent performances render many laughs in Lettice and Lovage

Under Steve Scott’s flowing direction, Millicent Hurley is wonderful as the wacky former thespian, Lettice Douffet, turned tour guide and Jan Ellen Graves is a hoot as the straight-laced Lotte Schoen, the bored administrator. Redtwist Theatre’s Lettice and Lovage is a star vehicle for the actor brave enough to tackle the crazy Lettice character. Millicent Hurley is fabulous in that role.

Lettice and Lovage is Peter Schaffer’s (Equus, Amadeus, The Royal Hunt of the Sun) 1987 Tony Award winning comedy written for Maggie Smith. Following Schaffer’s dominant theme: the visionary versus the mediocre, only this time being played out by two middle aged women, Schaffer utilizes a farcical comedic motif as he introduces us to the flamboyant Lettice Douffet, a most memorable character. Essentially, Lettice and Lovage is a funny look at coming to terms with the modern world by two kindred spirits trapped by their imaginations and their social-economic status. They form a special friendship that allows them to cope with their dreary lives after initially being quite hostile toward one another.

We meet Lettice as she embellishes her tour narrative because Fustian House in Britain was so bland that her tourist was so bored that she invented unique stories to spice up her tours. These scenes set the comic tone and give us a clue into Lettice’s vivid imagination. When Lotte Schoen, sent by the Preservation Trust to investigate Lettice’s fictional transgressions, she was not amused and promptly fires Lettice. But Lotte’s quiet passion for history and her deep-seated need for excitement draws her to the eccentric, showy former Shakespearian actress. Lotte is enticed by the romantic world view Lettice projects and an unlikely friendship emerges as the two discover that they have a common view of the gray, dreary modern world that neither cherishes. Both realize, especially through the influence of Lettice’s herbal brew, “Lovage,” that their imagination may be their best remedy to deal with the cold contemporary world. Playing out their imagination through theatrical reenactments of history is their buffer against reality.

This smart comedy is a taxing role for both leading characters. Millicent Hurley’s over-the-top manic exuberance and splashy dramatic speech patterns (in fine British accent) that emotionally present the zany yet lovable Lettice. Hurley is hilarious as a bohemian artsy traditionalist. Hurley throws herself with ravish into each scene. She mesmerizes us with her deeply vulnerable performance. With loads of heart, Hurley’s Lettice becomes a most dazzlingly memorable character. We cheer for her.

Jan Ellen Graves, as the stiff, emotionally suppressed bureaucrat, Lotte Schoen, early on hints of a complex character yearning for excitement and adventure in her life. She is attracted to Lettice’s imaginative world. Graves truthfully peals away Lotte’s seemingly bland personality to reveal a soul ready for excitement. Graves’ comedic style both plays off and sets up Hurley and/or adds funny double takes thus adding more humor. Maura Kidwell, as Lotte’s secretary and Jim Morley, as Bardolph added some humor in support.

Each of the three acts have wacky plots twists as we see a unique middle-aged female buddy play out as an intelligent contemporary comedy of manners—one filled with perceptive ideas and social commentary. You’ll love Millicent Hurley and Jan Ellen Graves as the two very British women seeking some fun. Good writing and passionate characters living out their imaginations equals terrific theatre. Lettice and Lovage is a hit. It is clever and hilarious.

You gotta love British wit.
Reviewed by Zev Valancy on October 10, 2009

For some plays, charm is everything. Peter Shaffer's "Lettice and Lovage," for example, would have little to recommend it if produced without a whole lot of charm. Luckily, Steve Scott's intimate production at Redtwist is graced with delightful performances by Millicent Hurley and Jan Ellen Graves, as well as a nimble supporting cast and designs that make the very best of the tiny stage. Together they make for a very fun show that almost covers the script's problems.

Lettice Douffet (Hurley, in a role originated by Maggie Smith) is a tour guide at Fustian House, the dullest of England's historic homes. One day she realizes that if she helps history along with her own inventions, the tour will become far more popular — and she'll get far more tips. This goes well until Lotte Schoen (Graves), from the Preservation Trust, discovers her fabrications, endangering her job. But the play isn't over, and the blossoming of the friendship of these two unusual women makes up the rest of the show.

"Lettice and Lovage" is full of very British witticisms, and for those who love such language (and I count myself a member of that group), there's a lot of fun to be had watching the two actresses deliver the lines. They're clearly having the times of their lives, and it's a joy to witness. But eventually the relentless cheer and inoffensive gentility can get rather tedious. The fact that the second act is virtually without dramatic conflict and the third needlessly protracted contribute to this problem significantly.

But even when things get slow, there is charm to carry the day. Hurley's airy fantasies play beautifully opposite Graves's trenchant wit, and Scott has staged the production gracefully on Jack Magaw's lovely and witty set. The show may not be a fully satisfying theatrical meal, but it's a delicious dessert.

4 stars * * * *
reviewed by Brian Nemtusak

The oppressive grayness of Protestant, Parliamentarian, post-Stuart Englishness comprises the thematic backdrop of Shaffer’s late-’80s comedy, originally conceived as a vehicle for grande dame Maggie Smith. But its real subject is the unlikely friendship that springs up between two diametrically dissimilar middle-aged women, united by a shared passion for…well, passion. Millicent Hurley and Jan Ellen Graves put on a hell of a show as this older, Anglo, alternate-universe Thelma & Louise duo.

Lettice (Hurley), an inveterate (and irresistible) fabulist, gets fired by Lotte (Graves), her strict-construction superior, for embellishing the history of venerable Fustian House, a dry-as-dust architectural “attraction,” on the tours she guides. But the drama of her exit interview so impresses closet-rebel Lotte that she tries to find her another position. Before long they’re drunkenly reenacting the executions of “spunky” pre-Georgian heroes and heroines, with predictably disastrous results.

Director Steve Scott applies his customarily precise focus to this Redtwist production. He doesn’t lack for polished assistance: Jack Magaw and Christopher Kriz supply masterful set and sound design, respectively, and Hurley (in a flat-out marvelous performance) and Graves (in perfect pace) make the most of the verbal fireworks Shaffer, at his most generous, serves up here. Even given an intentionally overwritten third act that overplays its gambit just a bit, this is pretty much a joy from start to finish.

4 stars ****
Reviewed by Paige Listerud
Posted on October 18, 2009 by Chicago Theater Blog

The Redtwist Theatre production of Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage is nothing but pure comic delight. Director Steve Scott keeps it simple and allows the talents of Millicent Hurley (Lettice) and Jan Ellen Graves (Lotte) to take flight. Starting out as opponents, Lettice and Lotte solidify their friendship over shared confessions of their philosophies and tastes. Hurley and Graves ground their characters in the fullness of flesh and blood, accenting their foils’ eccentricities without a hint of condescension. The result is a comedy whipped up to deceptively light and careless fun. Sterling and well-balanced performances by Jim Morley (Bardolph) and Maura Kidwell (Miss Framer) set the production like a little diamond in silver.

Charlotte “Lotte” Schoen, manager of tours conducted through Fustian House in Wiltshire, England, must sack Lettice Douffet for deviating from the official tour script. But Lettice, who believes her duty is “to enlarge, to enliven, to enlighten” her tourist audience, finds Fustian House “haunted by the ghost of Nothing Ever Happened” and since “fantasy floods in where fact leaves a vacuum,” feels free to embellish on family estate history. Though Lotte cannot allow Lettice to have free reign with the facts, she is drawn nevertheless into Lettice’s world and reveals passions one would never have thought possible in her staid, practical nature.

The light, quick precision of Hurley and Graves’ performances allows Shaffer’s comedy to be what it was intended: a little rebellion against the grayness of the modern world that champions the imagination against resigned acceptance to what is. Lettice and Lotte may indeed act like schoolgirls, but their childlike play sets the soul free from crushing convention. In laughing with, as well as at, their shenanigans the audience becomes their co-conspirators.
“Without danger, there is no theater,” says Lettice, a woman whose whole life confronts head on the fear of appearing ridiculous. But what is that compared with submitting to the absurdity of promoting an inedible cheese product at a supermarket for her living? Beneath Lettice’s brave eccentricities lies the incapacity to accept the gross absurdities of capitalist civilization; just as beneath Lotte’s practicality lies a radical revulsion against modern ugliness. Their blossoming friendship gives them the freedom to be themselves with each other and, who knows, perhaps create an alternative future. For a couple of hours, we get to steep in the light of their growing bond with each other and enjoy the freedom of their bloodless revolution.

RECOMMENDED
by Lisa Buscani for Newcity

“The only good I perceive is in beauty. This world gets uglier by the minute,” says Lotte Schoen in “Lettice and Lovage,” Peter Shaffer’s paean to bravery and beauty. The Redtwist remount unfolds under Steve Scott’s watchful directorial eye with enjoyable results.
Lettice (Millicent Hurley) is a docent assigned to a boring historical landmark; her penchant for “re-imagining” the house’s history gets her in dutch with Lotte (Jan Ellen Graves), docent supervisor. The two bond over their commitment to history, heritage and rising above “the mere.”

Hurley’s Lettice, left behind by the modern world, is suitably theatrical; Graves’ Lotte, who grudgingly integrates into contemporary times, is phlegmatically bureaucratic. However, the nicest surprises come from the supporting players; Maura Kidwell brings quirky subtlety and timing to her gawky assistant. Jim Morley travels an amusing arc from dismissive lawyer to inspired number-one fan. Watching those two transform is a thing of beauty.

REVIEW by Mary Shen Barnidge
2009-10-21

"Fantasy floods in where fact leaves a vacuum," declares Miss Laetitia "Lettice" Douffet ( pronounced "doo-FAY", thank you ) . To that end, the tour guide to "the dullest house in England" proceeds to embellish her accounts of the building's history with an ever-escalating inventory of speculative details, to the elation of her charges and the chagrin of Miss Charlotte Schoen, her supervisor at the Preservation Trust conducting the educational excursions.

But just when we think this will be a Shavian comedy pitting practical-minded commoners—Lettice is not above soliciting tips from her rapt audiences—against stuffy authorities, our confabulating heroine reveals an agenda beyond simply livening up her boring job and making a little money on the side. Her mission is to liberate the citizens of a drab modern society through vivid stories designed to restore the drama and excitement of a romanticized past. Gradually, her straitlaced adversary becomes infected by this obsessive lunacy (assisted by liberal draughts of a homemade liquor possessing mysterious properties). Their unlikely camaraderie leads to make-believe games that nearly end in tragedy after a re-enactment of Charles the First's beheading in 1645.

Fanciful interpretations of documented chronicles, based in fuzzy nostalgia, are an easy sell to American audiences. Yes, we know that the great upheavals of yore were as much endured as enjoyed by our ancestors and that no age has a monopoly on thrilling deeds or soul-starving drudgery, but if we are to empathize with these pre-menopausal spinsters immersed in folie à deux, their disdain for self-effacing mediocrity and hunger for grand gestures must capture our imaginations as inexorably as it does theirs.

The key to persuading us to buy into author Peter Shaffer's manifesto is to seduce, rather than overwhelm, us with its passion. Fortunately, director Steve Scott has at his disposal Millicent Hurley and Jan Ellen Graves, a pair of actresses who attack their roles with a gusto never spilling over into excess. In the tiny Redtwist Theatre storefront where the energy from the stage is capable of filling the room to its corners, the conjuration always begins quietly, gradually swelling to its crescendo with each of us following as entranced as the subordinate characters likewise drawn in. If, at curtain call, you feel an inexplicable impulse to rise up and give three cheers, you won't be alone.

Lettice and Lovage trundles along
Nina Metz Special to the Tribune
★★1/2

Peter Shaffer's 1987 comedy about a pair of middle-age gals running like the devil from the threat of encroaching boredom and mediocrity, feels extremely British. Even the playwright has called it a "very English piece" in terms of its comedic rhythms and references.

Suffice it to say there is a whole lot of Anglophilic love driving this Redtwist Theatre revival, directed with a clean sense of purpose and an eye firmly on the funny by Goodman associate producer Steve Scott.

Be forewarned, this is a play in love with the sound of its own voice, long-winded and a bit wearying by the end of its 2 1/2 hours. It's the sort of mild vintage entertainment common in the 1960s -- Shaffer's instincts (which also netted "Equus" and "Amadeus") feel out of step with the times here. The piece sort of bips and bops along pleasantly, perfectly enjoyable until it's not.

Lettice (a nice turn here by Millicent Hurley) is the eccentric who has spent the better part of her adult years offering historical tours. Melodramatic embellishment is her specialty. (Maggie Smith famously originated the role in London and on Broadway.)

She meets her match in Lotte (Jan Ellen Graves), the fusty wet blanket who sends Lettice packing when it's discovered the old gal's been feeding juicy historical inaccuracies to American and European tourists. Eventually, a quirky friendship develops, based on a predilection for homemade liquor and a shared hobby of re-enacting famous executions.

The comedy here is fueled by its giddy trampling of English comportment, and Scott's ensemble nails it every time, including some savvy performances from Maura Kidwell (in a number of roles, including Lotte's dotty secretary) and Jim Morley as the buttoned-up solicitor who finds himself sitting smack in the middle of the Lettice-and-Lotte show. If only it were half as long.

Reviewed by Robert Bullen, EDGE Contributor
Wednesday Oct 21, 2009

"Enlarge! Enliven! Enlighten!"

This is the battle cry for Lettice Douffet, the eccentric tour guide with a penchant for the dramatic in Peter Shaffer’s charming play, Lettice and Lovage. It’s interesting, then, that Redtwist, with their cozy performance space that seats just under 40, would choose to stage a show that begs for grand comedy. However, with addictive chemistry from its two leading ladies and effective use of the unconventional space by director Steve Scott, this production doesn’t so much leap off the stage into our hearts, as it does slowly -- but most assuredly -- win you over with its unending spirit.

Lettice (Millicent Hurley), a deeply passionate historical tour guide, discovers that distracted tourists respond quite strongly to her dramatic embellishments of historical facts. Enter the buttoned-up Preservation Trust personnel manager Lotte (Jan Ellen Graves), who sets out to remove Lettice from her post after listing first-hand to her wildly fanciful recounting of a staircase in an otherwise lackluster hall. However, as unlikely as it first seems, these two women have more in common than one would think.

It’s essentially a two-woman showcase, with the title character created by Shaffer specifically for Dame Maggie Smith, who won many awards for her work when the show transferred from its hit West End run to Broadway in 1990.

Hurley and Graves are two very skilled actresses who obviously have a great time working together. Hurley, who has the arduous task of bringing Lettice to life, does so with humanity, grandness and a touch of fragility. Graves could amp up the broadness in act two, but is a perfect foil for Hurley. The barely-used supporting cast is very fine, particularly Maura Kidwell, who seems to be channeling Kristen Wiig as Lotte’s painfully timid secretary, and Jim Morley as Lettice’s tightly-wound attorney.

I would argue that Shaffer’s script is simply overlong. There’s no reason that such a light affair need be three acts and 2.5 hours long. The final act wears out its welcome, as we can see where it’s all headed before it gets there. But Scott’s direction keeps things moving along.

Jack Magaw’s physical design gets the job done, working within Redtwist’s unique limitations. However, I do think Lettice’s scene stealing second act outfit, designed by Erin Fast, could be even more outrageous.

As it is, if you want to see two fantastic actresses at the top of their game, check out Redtwist’s Lettice and Lovage.

Back to top