We may be only one week into 2020, but “Love, Loss and What I Wore” has already started the new year of the Oakville Drama series at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts.
While the now-famous off-Broadway play is the Centre’s first show this year, it’s not in the subscription series. (The Oakville Drama series consists of five plays from October to March, in which this is the third.) Even though it’s been running in New York since 2009, this is the first time it’s been staged in Oakville.
The play is a staged reading of monologues based on a 1995 book of the same name by Ilene Beckerman. The subject matter is about the parallels of women’s wardrobes and the significant events in their lives.
Denise Oucharek directed this staging; a Sheridan faculty member and veteran of Mirvish Productions and the Stratford Festival. She says it’s the landscape of relatable stories that makes the play so unique.
“What makes this production special,” says Oucharek, “is the wonderful sisterhood of actresses telling these beautiful, diverse stories. It’s about women overcoming adversity, celebrating life and being able to laugh at humanity’s quirks.”
The cast of five is wonderful
That sisterhood Oucharek describes is of the five performers who make up the ensemble, many of them playing several roles. Chelsea Johnson, Delta Marando, Franny McCabe Bennett, Rowan O’Brien and Brigida Scholten all ground the stage wonderfully throughout the show.
But audiences who’ve seen other works by writer Nora Ephron (co-written by her sister Delia) might be in for a surprise. Despite being as funny and deceptively simple as her better-known movies, these stories feel much less stylized.
“We’re living in times that are quite divisive and polarized,” Oucharek explains. “This beautiful show unites us. It reminds us that we can re-connect and find common ground through the sharing of our experiences.”
Maybe that kind of authenticity is exactly the kind of play audiences look for at the start of the new year.
Love, Loss, and What I Wore is presented by the Oakville Drama Series and West End Studio Theatre. It plays the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts, 130 Navy Street, until this Sunday, January 12th. Finally, tickets are available online here or at (905)-338-4161.