Photo by Raquel Rosado
Acacia Theatre 'The Jeweler's Shop'
Joe Dolan in Acacia Theatre's 'The Jeweler's Shop'
What’s immediately notable about Acacia Theatre’s current production of The Jeweler’s Shop is its playwright: Pope John Paul II.
It’s less of a three act play in 75 minutes (no intermission) and more of a meditation and reflection on love, marriage and human existence. And specifically, the challenges three couples face. Their lives interlock together—and separately—at the jeweler’s shop. And in keeping with its spiritually based perspective, Acacia and director Elaine Rewolinski keep this staging simple and spare, the purity and poetry of the language front and center, the messages telling and timeless.
The Pope first wrote the play in 1960 at the age of 40 as the younger Karol Wojtyla. He had already acted and wrote theatrically and co-founded The Rhapsodic Theatre—not a specific place but more as a creative effort to resist the Communist presence in his native Poland.
The best known of his plays, The Jeweler’s Shop follows in that Rhapsodic tradition where the emphasis is on speaking, here in parables, addressing the audience directly rather than with dialogue among the actors. So, there is a lot more talk and a lot less action as the characters reflect on their circumstances: a young couple newly engaged looking toward the life ahead of them; a married couple desperately unhappy and yet a third, a product of the first two.
Photo by Raquel Rosado
Acacia Theatre 'The Jeweler's Shop'
Bekah Rose, Andrew Sear, Kimberly Giddens and Marcel Alston in Acacia Theatre's 'The Jeweler's Shop'
The cast of seven actors does a solid job, given the enormous amount of monologues and intermittent interaction. As an unhappy wife looking to sell her wedding ring, Susie Duecker brings her character to life with a riveting, three-dimensional portrait of a woman desperately seeking love and affection—from anyone. The narrator—and jeweler—Joe Dolan is well-cast as the wise, older man: advisor and mentor to his customers. It’s by design that his character’s name is Adam, there at the start of it all. And Kimberly Giddens best exemplifies the play’s messages as her character, Teresa, shows that love comes from within and “stays the course,” regardless of life’s challenges.
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In The Jeweler’s Shop, what has the most value does not shine or sparkle. It is unseen—but there for the taking.
The Jeweler’s Shop runs through November 13 in Norvell Commons at St. Christopher’s Church, 7845 N. River Road, River Hills. For more information, call: 414-744-5995 or visit acaciatheatre.com.
