INCIDENT AT NORTH COAST REP IS ANOTHER IN
A LINE OF HITS THAT NEED NO HELP
Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a nostalgic domestic comedy drama now on view in an illuminating and highly entertaining production at North Coast Rep. Written by Katie Forgette, and first staged five years ago, it now can be enjoyed in a spot-on local premiere in a theater that continues to offer an unbroken variety of outstanding productions on its compact 194-seat main stage.
Erin Noel Grennan, Abbi Hoffpauir & Samantha Gorjanc
Forgette has a reputation for writing plays that side with females, young and old. In this play, she has stocked her show with vivid characters, most of them members of the Irish-Catholic O’Shea family living in an unnamed city in the United States in 1973. The family consists of Mike O’Shea (Tom Dugan), his wife Jo (Erin Noel Grennan), their 19-year-old daughter Linda (Samantha Gorjanc) and 13-year-old daughter Becky (Abbi Hoffpauir), and Jo’s married sister Terri (Shana Wride). Dugan also gives scene-stealing performances as a neighborhood busybody in drag and a hypocritical old-school priest named Father Lovett.
Samantha Gorjanc & Erin Noel Grennan
During the two-act play, the actors on stage often speak directly to the audience. The chat is humorous and sometimes dramatic as Forgette deftly shifts between character and actor, avoiding the danger of being gimmicky or cutesy. The playwright’s script is written at the PG-13 level though there are passages dealing explicitly with sex that are a hoot.
Samantha Gorjanc, Erin Noel Grennan Abbi Hoffpauir, Shana Wride & Tom Dugan
Linda O’Shea is the narrator, who advises the audience that what they are seeing is really a memory story filtered through the characters’ perceptions. The play reflects the conventions of a well-written television sitcom circa the later 1900s. In particular, it deals with a family crisis created by the inadvertent violation of restrictive social and religious mores of the time.
Abbi Hoffpauir & Samantha Gorjanc
Forgette takes some hard swings at the abusive treatment of Catholic homemakers of the time, who must run a household and raise a family, usually with an inadequate budget and little assistance from their self-involved spouses. That’s the world the playwright presents in the portraits of the long-suffering Jo and Terri and the selfish Mike and the bullying and hypocritical Father Lovett. At my Sunday matinee, the large turnout of women viewers responded with exuberant agreement when Jo and Terri finally turned on the menfolk.
Shana Wride & Tom Dugan
When a production works this well, especially when dealing with potentially sensitive topics, the viewer should look first at the work of the director. And for this gift, we must thank Jenny Sullivan for her pinpoint casting, her creative meld of humor, and the seriousness in Forgette’s script.
Tom Dugan & Abbi Hoffpauir
The North Coast production staff, as usual, uses the intimate stage space as an essential element in the show’s atmosphere. Designers Marty Burnett (scenery), Matthew Novotny (lighting), Elisa Belzoni (costumes), Evan Eason (sound), Peter Herman (hair and wigs), and Christopher M. Williams (props) have formed a resourceful team, as usual.
Tom Dugan & Samantha Gorjanc
photos by Aaron Rumley
Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help
North Coast Repertory Theatre
987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach
Wed & Thurs at 7; Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7; Wed at 2 (Nov. 13); Fri at 2 (Oct. 25)
ends on November 17, 2024 EXTENDED to November 24, 2024
for tickets ($52-$74), call 858.481-1055 or visit North Coast Rep