Tom Rooney, Graeme Somerville, Allison Edwards-Crewe & Sochi Fried in Heartbreak House | Photo by David Cooper
It has been properly acknowledged that George Bernard Shaw was steering into Chekovian territory with Heartbreak House. (Oh, the ennui!) What I haven’t seen so thoroughly remarked upon is how influenced he seems to have been by Oscar Wilde too. I mean, the first act of this plays out as if we’ve been mischievously dropped into a frivolous comedy of manners. As people keep showing up on the scene, I expected an Ernest to manifest amongst them with whimsical importance.
Most plays have people talking, of course, but there is a density to Shaw’s text and its idealogical sparring that can be fatiguing, on the page especially, and I did start to wonder, as I read it a few weeks ago, if anyone was ever going to shut up. But execution makes all the difference and director Tim Carroll’s Shaw Festival production allows the ideas to pop while maintaining a generally compelling and varied ambiance.
At the centre of this comedic-drama is an eccentric and estranged family. Hesione Hushabye (Julia Course) has been living at Heartbreak House this whole time, but her sister Ariadne (Sochi Fried) has suddenly returned after two decades away. Much to her chagrin, she’s treated like any other guest by Hesione and their father, Captain Shotover (Tom Rooney), who spends the play mostly shuffling in to make some hilariously perplexing comment then wandering out again. There is a disconnect between all three, most evident in their distinct temperaments, but also suggesting some deeper, more amorphous sense of displacement that hangs in the air around them… along with those suspended, off kilter chairs (more on them later).
The performances are rich and textured. Course conveys Hesione with a waggish intentionality I found beguiling. Fried’s starchy Ariadne, by contrast, is a haughty, pricklier presence, and compelling in her own right. Rooney (who I’ve yet to find anything short of mesmerizing in any role he takes on), well, his elderly Captain is paradoxically robust in his doddering, quirky interjections. Despite their disparate attitudes and demeanour, the trio maintain a palpably familial connection and persuasive dignity.
Another pivotal piece of the story is Hesione’s attempt to quash the engagement between the youthful Ellie Dunn (Allison Edwards-Crewe) and her much older suitor, Boss Mangan (Graeme Somerville), a wealthy tycoon who saved her father, Mazzini (Neil Barclay), from ruin. (Or did he?) This scenario opens up a whole Shavian conversation about the knotty institution of marriage as a pragmatic, mutually exploitative business arrangement. Despite her genteel and tender facade, Edwards-Crewe proves a formidable presence here. Even before she reveals her strategic consistency of purpose, her face and posture, even while just listening, reveal intense awareness and deliberation.
Over the course of the three acts, these collected servants, wives, husbands, fathers and betrothed parties wrangle incessantly and seem forever on the verge on hooking up with someone else’s wife or husband. Though moral considerations creep into their dynamic, the overall vibe is one of reckless impulse gratification peppered with grand philosophizing.
Set in the English countryside during the first world war, there is some overt class satire here as Shaw sets up this navel-gazing aristocracy only to have the reality of the first world war intrude upon their privileged way of life. They are so self-obsessed, however, that even the bombs going off around them—and a small death toll—is treated it as little more than a flashy entertainment to enliven their idle existence.
Carroll’s production leaves a lot to our creative imaginations, but provides plenty of traction. The Brechtian decision to have stage directions delivered as narration by the staff—Butler (Michael Therriault) and Maid (Kristi Frank), who chatted up the audience during pre-show and were very charming—is an interesting one. There are no sound effects, we are told what characters are reacting too—an alienating device that is stylistically intriguing, but doesn’t quite suit the play’s finale, which requires some tangible sense of destruction.
Shaw specifies that the house have a nautical structure, but no attempt has been made to convey this. Instead, designer Ximena Pinilla offers up chairs as a primary motif and they drift precariously about the checkerboard flooring. Two of these are the above mentioned pair hanging aloft—the point of which is hard to parse, but could be related, I would guess, to the notion of these characters as unmoored in the stagnant water of their society.
Pinilla’s costumes are considerably more alluring—a rather gorgeous and extravagant assortment of black and white, art deco attire. I was especially fond of Captain Shotover’s fisherman knit sweater, one of many dapper pieces. Louise Guinand’s lighting design doesn’t stray too far from a standard, warm wash until the final act, when a cool, calming, yet ominous blue bathes a languid, moonlit garden party.
As the characters sprawl out listlessly, a turtle with a lantern strapped to its shell slowly roams about them. This is an adorable and intriguing aspect of the production. Firstly, as someone who lives with a turtle, this artificial creature is remarkably convincing in the murky light. It’s theatrical purpose isn’t obvious, but my impression was this: it hints at the entitled audacity of these characters who felt compelled to fit an illuminating device onto this creature while also providing a mediative focal point for our attention, which, for me at least, ebbed and flowed with the sporadically compelling conversation.
There is some droll business with a Burglar (Sanjay Talwar) that vexes the characters and subverts our expectations. Jason Cadieux’s turn as Randall, a lovesick brother-in-law, is appropriately exasperating. As the endearing Hector, a peacocking husband and deceptively boastful ladies man, Martin Happer is an amiable rascal. Fiona Byrne is delightfully trope-y as Nurse Guinness, a dutifully accommodating yet world-weary servant.
With great panache, everyone here fits snuggly into this Shavian portrait.
Hmmm, that ending could be stronger though. Without a representational set, sound or lighting effects to convey the threat of war, I think the crucial impression could have been achieved (I’ll let you imagine how) with those suspended chairs, giving them more distinctive purpose and sending us out with some sort of a bang to give a menacing edge to the bittersweet solemnity of “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”
Heartbreak House
June 20 to October 3, 2026
Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre
(10 Queen’s Parade, Niagara-on-the-Lake)
2 hours, 30 minutes (plus intermissions)
Julia Course & Tom Rooney in Heartbreak House | Photo by David Cooper