THEATER

59E59 Theater
Tuesdays at Tesco's

This play was written before Bruce Jenner's quest.

Below is the New York Times review...

Simon Callow in ‘Tuesdays at Tesco’s’

You’ve seen the British actor Simon Callow in heady stuff like “Being Shakespeare,” perhaps, and maybe caught his performances in films including “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” but you haven’t seen all that this versatile performer, director and writer has to offer until you catch “Tuesdays at Tesco’s,” which begins previews at 59E59 Theaters on Thursday.

This English-language version of the play, translated and adapted by Matthew Hurt and Sarah Vermande from Emmanuel Darley’s French play “Le Mardi à Monoprix,” was first presented in 2011 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In it, Mr. Callow is Pauline, formerly Paul, who makes a weekly grocery-shopping trip with her ailing, widowed father. What should be a mundane event is made more complicated by her father’s lack of acceptance and stares from other small-town folk.

Below is the New York Daily News review...

Simon Callow trans-forms himself for ‘Tuesdays at Tesco’s’ 

William Burdett-Coutts 

Simon Callow in "Tuesdays at Tesco’s"

Lines learned and director’s notes digested, English actor Simon Callow had one last detail — a hairy one — to take care of before launching his run in “Tuesdays at Tesco’s.”
“I’m about to have my chest waxed,” he told the Daily News on Tuesday. “It’s the price of being a woman.”

 In this 70-minute monologue adapted from Emmanuel Darley’s French comedy-drama “Le Mardi à Monoprix,” Callow plays Pauline, formerly Paul. Her weekly trip to the supermarket with her ailing, widowed father opens a window to a suddenly very topical story about identity and acceptance.

“It’s a role like no other, and not just because it’s transgendered,” says Callow, 65, known for the films “A Room With a View,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” and the one-man Broadway show “The Mystery of Charles Dickens.”
“Pauline is uniquely scattered, complex, heroic and sometimes pathetic. She’s a turbulent personality.”

Pauline is uniquely scattered, complex, heroic and sometimes pathetic.

Embodying Pauline, and her perils, is by turns “very exciting and quite harrowing,” adds Callow. The feeling is familiar; he first played the role in 2011 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Since then, the much-discussed transgender journey of Bruce Jenner has made the subject headline news. Callow hasn’t followed Jenner’s story, but acknowledges it provides a brighter spotlight.

“It’s very convenient,” says Callow. “When I did the play four years ago, Bruce Jenner was a mere stepfather and decathlete.”

Callow, who plays Pauline as well as her father and Tesco’s employees and customers, says the story is about authenticity. “To thine own self be true,” he says, borrowing from the Bard, who he brought to life three years ago at Brooklyn Academy of Music in “Being Shakespeare.” The News’ review applauded his plummy voice and canny acting.”

Callow hasn’t bent genders in Shakespeare. “I was never pretty enough,” he says, “and it’s usually women dressing as men.” But being raised in what he calls “a male-free zone” of two grandmothers, lots of aunts and his mother has informed his emotional and physical portrait of Pauline.

“I know an awful lot about how women make up their faces,” he says. “I watched women assemble themselves. It’s a ritual and science — the science of assembling. I understand how Pauline is assembled.”