A Rose by any other name

Perth Theatre Company is proudly supporting the national presentation of Agelink Theatre's outstanding production of Rose by Martin Sherman in 2010.

A one-woman tour de force, Rose celebrates an extraordinary life spanning the twentieth century, told with the perspective of wisdom that only age can bring.

We meet Rose, perched alone on a hard wooden bench in Miami as she sits shivah (the traditional period of mourning), trying to make sense of a fascinating life that began in a Russian village at the turn of the century and took her via Warsaw’s ghettos and a doomed ship of fleeing Jews to the boardwalks of Atlantic City, Arizona’s canyons and salsa-flavoured nights in Miami. Rose is a feisty woman of the world, her wonderful, wisened ways adding a wrinkle to a life that has been etched by the Jewish diaspora.

She has seen and experienced it all: two dead husbands, a shiksa (non-Jewish) daughterin- law who became a militant Israeli, Cossacks and Nazis, a gay grandson, to affairs with older and younger men, channeling the libidinous spirit of her dead one eyed husband, the kabbala and life in a hippy commune. Rose won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2000; This Australian premiere production is outstanding and Rosemarie Lenzo's performance charms with a lightness of touch in juxtaposing pain and humour.

This is an amazing show and one that reminds audiences of how powerful great theatre can be. In Perth, over its limited season this play attracted an ever growing audience and far exceeded the interest of the expected audience (Older audiences and the Jewish Community), getting to a wider audience than we originally thought.

Martin Shermans writing, while based in the reality of aneldery jewess reflecting on her life, transcends the obvious and makes Rose a celebration of living and of the 20th Century.

but why would you believe a theatre company that is promoting its own show? - Here is a review and i can send you a full copy if you would like a better read.
“The writing is one thing. The performance, though, is everything. Lenzo, in her first stage appearance for several years, is confident and commanding as the wry Rose in this demanding monologue directed with restrained assurance by Gillian Berry.”

“Though having the benefit of a smaller, more intimate room, Lenzo is every bit as good (over a longer duration on stage) as Helen Morse was in another recent play about loss, The Year of Magical Thinking.”
The West Australian

More information about Agelink Theatre is here
More information about Perth Theatre Company and Rose - here