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Ehlers marvellous as Meisie

Shelved dreams and dormant desires come to the fore over chips and egg in ‘Meisie Valentine’. An adaption of the Willy Russell play of similar name by Sandy Rudd and Lize Ehlers.

Starring Ehlers as Meisie who begins her monologue in a bathrobe and curlers while recalling the days she pronounced the T in Merlot, the play tells the story of a disillusioned receptionist staring down middle-age armed with a bottle of rose and a soul-saving sense of humour.

As hilariously self-deprecating as she is thoroughly depressed, Meisie imparts the story of her unfulfilled life from her kitchen table where Ehlers expertly embodies the 42-year-old woman with sad little laughs, rambling sentences and heartbreaking echoes of former joie-de-vivre.

All this directed at a wall. With her daughter out of the house and her emotionally unavailable husband more concerned with what’s for dinner than he is about her, Meisie calmly confides in the wall when not chatting to her sole friend, Jane.

Fickle, a feminist and not beyond booking her friend a trip to Mauritius, Jane is Meisie’s antithesis as well as the life-changing spanner in her wedded works which grinds the relentless machine to a halt in a story about the stagnation preceding self-discovery.

Cleverly transformed from a kitchen scene to the beaches of Mauritius with two blown up photos and the flipping of a screen, stage design by Helen Harris is subtle enough to keep the focus on Ehlers while creating the desired illusions below Dobie Gray’s ‘Drift Away’ as recurring musical motif.

Relatable and bittersweet, Rudd and Ehlers’ bi-lingual adaption (Afrikaans and English) revives the familiar story with quips about Trump, Steve Hofmeyer, Slick the Dick and the struggle kids in between anecdotal stories about growing up in Mariental.

Oscillating between side-splitting observations about marriage which include the inevitable hunt for the clitoris to more poignant ruminations on wasted life, lost love, claustrophobic expectations, loneliness and dimmed shine, the play engages from the start and laughs till the end with Ehlers simply marvellous as Meisie.

Catch ‘Meisie Valentine’ at Weylandts Courtyard on 8 December and Cosdef on 10 December at Swakopmund as well as at Walvis Bay Yacht Club on 9 December. Tickets are available at the door. Email sandyrudd60@gmail.com or lizeehlers@gmail.com for more information.

– martha@namibian.com.na;@marth__vader on Twitter; Martha Mukaiwa on Instagram

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