reviewvancouver: Annapurna

Quite a few factors came together to make this performance special: not only was it my first experience at the very intimate PAL Studio Theatre, but it was also director Christy Webb’s final directing project after two decades working in Hong Kong, as well as the Canadian premiere of playwright Sharr White’s Annapurna.

The set design was small and personal: the inside of a trailer in disarray, located “in the ass crack of the Rockies” in Colorado. With running water and a working toaster oven (you could smell the bread toasting during the climactic sandwich making scene), the set made for a very authentic and intimate experience.

Two very talented actors brought this emotionally tumultuous story to life. Lucia Frangione warmly portrayed Emma, the estranged wife of Ulysses (played by the charismatic and often endearingly spastic Daryl Shuttleworth). After a short period of awkwardness (either due to opening night tension, or the fact that these two characters reunited after 20 years of alienation at the start of this play), Emma and Ulysses eventually got into a groove, getting lots of laughter from the small audience and settling into a familiar flow.

Shuttleworth as Ulysses has a hearty, infectious laugh that instantly disarms both the audience as well as his estranged ex-wife Emma. Through their rapid-fire dialogue and quirks, their history together unfolds like a bad dream from long ago. Frangione as the fiercely determined Emma digs in to try and uncover the gaps in her ex-husband’s subconscious as he struggles to overcome his own personal obstacles and physical ailments, having “turned over a rotten leaf”.

Annapurna is lovingly directed and acted, and this short but bittersweet play perfectly reveals a complex story of love, nostalgia, and memory, each at its best and worst. I would highly recommend seeing this performance if not just for the earnest chemistry between Frangione and Shuttleworth.