The Cemetery Club

 This very entertaining production of “The Cemetery Club” performed by the Ormskirk Theatre Company was written by Ivan Menchell and Directed by Pat Baker, who was assisted by the cast. The script is full of one liners and barbed comments, it is easy to follow and has lots of laughs as well as some very touching telling moments. The story is about three Jewish widows, from Forest Hills, Queens, New York, who get together once a month on a Sunday for tea at Ida’s home and then go to the cemetery to visit their husbands' graves. Although they are the best of friends they are very different characters, and they are each coping with their loss in their own way. There is Ida warmly played with compassion by Sue Morris, she is dependable, well balanced and a peacemaker, she still feels the loss of her husband Murray but would like to move on with her life. In contrast there is Lucille, confidently and comedically played by Pat Baker, she is brash, funny and flirts with all the men she comes into contact with believing they want to have an affair with her, unfortunately this is mostly in her imagination, and you get the sense that her behaviour hides the fact that she is quite lonely She has some very funny lines such as  refusing to be a member of a club in which “half the members are dead”. Since Harry died she likes to go shopping and is always looking for a bargain, for example she buys a fur coat, hat and muff, from the thrift shop and gets upset when the third member of the trio Doris, guesses how much she paid for them. Barby Fillingham, gave a lovely secure performance as stoic Doris who is happy living in the past clinging to her husband Abe’s memory, and visits the cemetery regularly to look after his grave. However, while visiting the cemetery things change when the ladies meet Sam a butcher by trade and a widower, who has come to visit his wife’s grave, he is a quiet rather shy man and was played with a nice awkward charm and tenderness by Dave Smith.  He is attracted to Ida and they gradually become friends, but Doris thinks that Ida is being disrespectful to the memory of her late husband Murray, and Lucille is jealous, so Lucille and Doris get Sam on his own and persuade him that his relationship with Ida is wrong, so instead of taking Ida to mutual friend, Selma’s wedding as promised, he brings along another woman called Mildred, a nice cameo role played by Ann Todd, and is rather cool with Ida. This turn of events upsets Ida who cannot understand Sam’s behaviour, eventually Doris explains to her that Sam’s apparent coolness is because she and Lucille interfered and in the end Sam and Ida make up and things look promising for their future relationship. This is a story about love, friendships, and the sudden realisation that you are growing old and recognising the inevitability of death,

The pace of the play did slow on a few occasions especially when the cast seemed a little unsure of their lines, however, the dialogue was generally clear and easy to follow. All the cast made a very good effort to produce the difficult New York Jewish accent which is not easy with its distinctive vowels. They also made good use of the stage area and worked together as a team which is very important to the success of this type of play as this is an ensemble piece and the actors rely on each other to get their characters right or the play will not work.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening’s entertainment with allot of laughs and some poignant moments, well done to Director Pat Baker and to all involved in this production both backstage and front of house. Thank you very much for inviting us we had a lovely evening.

 [PC1]

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