by Miklos Laszlo
Adapted by Adam Pettle and Brenda Robins
Directed by Morris Panych
A Soulpepper Production
at the Young Centre for Performing Arts
December 2-24, 2009

   Soulpepper has its best ever production of a romantic comedy in Adam Pettle and Brenda Robins’ charming adaptation of a Hungarian émigré’s elegant, insightful exploration of longing. Under Morris Panych’s colourful direction, there are a few minor missteps but on the whole, this is a production that could be considered a real theatrical bonbon, with almost every part played to the hilt in a stunning, pink rococo set (by Ken MacDonald) with beautiful chocolate swirls and an Art Deco jewel box glow. Written in 1937, just a year before Laszlo left Hungary forever, Parfumerie inspired two Hollywood films (The Shop Around The Corner and In The Good Old Summertime) and the Broadway musical She Loves Me before Nora and Delia Ephron turned out the movie She Got Mail, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, hardly anybody’s idea of Hungarian. No matter. Adaptations can justify themselves, and this Canadian one certainly does because Pettle and Robins remain true to the romantic spirit of their Old World model and do not vulgarise the characters or plot by any latter-day twists.

   There are three romances or possible romances. The main one is the improbable one between George Asztalos and Rosie Balaz, two employees in Mr. Hammerschmidt’s perfume store. They detest each other, very much in the bickering manner of Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Benedick, but suddenly discover that they have been sending passionate love letters to each other as anonymous correspondents, causing their snippiness to melt away. Then there are two thwarted romances or would-be romances. Miss Molnar, the loyal cashier at the store, a middle-aged lonely heart, is secretly in love with Mr. Hammerschmidt, while he aches with a wounded heart over his wife’s infidelity. The wife remains offstage throughout. She is heard from only through sporadic telephone calls and by a report from the detective hired to investigate her love affair. Hammerschmidt suspects Mr. Asztalos of cuckoldry, leading to quite an uproar at the shop, but the real culprit is Stephen Kardash, another employee who gives his cad a nice dash. But the play is not only about ardour. It is about longing in general, as in the case of Louis Sipos, the employee who longs for job security, and in the case of young Arpad, the delivery boy who longs to be promoted, but who quickly allows his promotion to turn him into a little tyrant as the surrogate son of Hammerschmidt. How all these twists and turns play out is very much the achievement of this stylish production.

   The acting is generally first rate. Even the shop patrons, well costumed by Dana Osborne, register with well-heeled hurly-burly. William Webster has three small roles, the best being his Detective and Policeman. I just wish he had a larger part. There are little glowing gems of characterization by Michael Simpson (Sipos), Brenda Robins (Miss Molnar), and Kevin Bundy (Kadash). Joseph Ziegler, who can invest event the tiniest moment with deep feeling, develops the role of Hammerschmidt as a fine study in painful heartbreak rather than in mere choleric distemper, while Oliver Dennis and Patricia Fagan as the battlers suddenly turned into lovers are just about perfect. In a beautifully judged performance, Fagan avoids Schmaltz and Dennis delivers a compelling, touching portrait, lightened by some amazing comedy. The moment when he realizes that she is the imagined Heloise of his longing is quite priceless in its comic genius, and the blooming of their love is a thing of delicate, humanizing feeling.

   There are a couple of errors, however, in Panych’s direction. The first is the convention of strolling musicians. The error is not in the musicians themselves (Stacey Bulmer, Noah Reid, Kristina Uranowski) or their music. These are quite lovely. However, I would have preferred them to remain offstage or in the background rather than brought on stage like itinerants or a clichéd framing device. The second is in Jeff Lillico’s rather American manner and then his goosestep as young Arpad, the delivery boy turned bully. However, I must temper my criticism for Lillico, more often than not, has touching exuberance rather than histrionic extravagance. Yes, the play is set at Christmas time in 1937, a mere two years before World War II, but we hardly need to be reminded of that horror during the enjoyment of a bonbon, especially as Lillico is a gifted young actor who can score points on his own. Minor quibbles, I suppose, and certainly not enough to subtract substantially from a production that is otherwise a beautiful, charming, touching comedy, with a twist or two of romance, and a pang or two of pain, and always a heap of fascinations. I like this production so much that I think it should become a permanent seasonal fixture in the company’s repertoire—a complement to Soulpepper’s A Christmas Carol.

photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

pic 1 (L-R): Oliver Dennis (George Asztalos), Joseph Ziegler (Mr. Hammerschmidt)

pic 2: Oliver Dennis (George Asztalos), Patricia Fagan (Rosie Balaz)




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