Marriage. You get a lifelong partner and you get to put up with their family. You might even love them despite their family.
This is the case in Lunchbox Theatre’s production of Meg Braem’s A Worthy Opponent. Ivy (Allison Lynch) is taking on quite a battle, telling her soon to be mother-in-law that she and Nathan are engaged. The couple picked a rather weird venue to do it - a up and coming restaurant in a revitalized neighbourhood that used to be a grow op. It’s an interesting comedic scene to see the ‘actors’ who are waiters, pretending to be drug dealers, trying to engage Penelope (the very funny Elinor Holt) who is an academic and an entomologist.
Ivy and Nathan wanted to take his mom somewhere interesting to tell them that they are engaged and they picked this restaurant where Ivy runs into Eric (Brett Dahl) an old friend from acting school. Through this interaction, we learn that Ivy used to be named Martha and she quit acting school do yoga, but quit that too because the place started to smell like peanut butter when people started to sweat.
It’s what reveals the main criticism that Penelope has of Ivy, if she can’t stick with anything, how does she know she will stick with marriage? Ivy responds by saying she just knows, because it’s something she wants. The conversation continues like this with both women drinking copious amounts of alcohol. It’s kind of a wonder they can string sentences together.
There are still holes in the way the conversation unfolds between the two women, how they still manage to let the other person talk and still remain at the table, committed to the conversation. How they come together in the end, because they both love Nathan. It’s a little too polished to be realistic.
But A Worthy Opponent is funny and smart. It’s just right for a lunch hour break.
Lunchbox Theatre’s A Worthy Opponent runs until April 25. More information is available online.
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