Home Deliveries

Jericho Arts Centre to April 13, 2025

Tickets $15-$35 at 604-224-8007 or www.unitedplayers.com

Posted March 23, 2025

There’s still a few things to be said for a traditional proscenium stage and velvet curtains; the lights go down, there’s a hush, the curtains open and suddenly you are transported to London, New York, old Siam or anywhere else in the world through the magic of set, lights, costumes and soundscape. But that was then and now is now; the proscenium is all but gone. This is not a lament, merely an observation.

Walking into the theatre at the Jericho Arts Centre it’s right in your face: BAM! A huge bed – maybe two queens pushed together – dominates a très trendy grey/white bedroom. A couple of small white chairs and a pale grey planked floor. Designed by Heipo Leung, this handsome set is right out of Houzz.

Right away, this set leaves no doubt: expect a lot of action on that bed.

Lighting designer Christian Ching bathes the set in red light that washes back and forth and there are also several ceiling lights that flash on and off. Hannah DuMez, sound designer, creates a sort of industrial/urban/whirring/scraping sound – hard to describe but perfect – between the many short scenes. Especially in the seduction scenes, costume designer Sarah Sosick hits the mark: slinky, satiny decolletage. In this United Players production (in association with Ruby Slippers Theatre), directed by Ruby Slippers’ artistic director Diane Brown, production values are as high as it gets.

The first forty-five minutes of Home Deliveries went by so fast, I could hardly believe it when the intermission lights came up. I was pretty sure where it was going, I was having a good time and I was happy to go along for the ride.

A bit of history: Home Deliveries began as a film, Deux Femmes en or, an erotic comedy written by Claude Fournier and Marie-José Raymond back in 1970. It was, apparently, one of the most popular films in Canadian history and it gained some cult status. In 2023, Canadian playwright/screenwriter Catherine Léger adapted and updated the film, winning the World Cinematic Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Writing at the Sundance film festival. Subsequentially, Léger adapted the film for stage This UP/Ruby Slippers production is the English language premiere, translated by Leanna Brodie.

In Home Deliveries, Violet (Stefania Indelicato) and Florence (Aurora Chan) are a couple of sexually frustrated wives. Violet is on mat leave with a newborn that she is breastfeeding; Florence, mother of an 11-year-old son, is on stress leave and taking antidepressants. Ben (Dan Tait Brown), Violet’s husband, is on the road a lot and having an affair with Miss YouTube (Alina Quarin) when he’s out of town. David (Daniel Martin), Florence’s spouse has never given Florence an orgasm. Ever.

Living in side-by-side condos, Florence and Violet find each other and hatch a plot to get some fun, uncommitted sex by calling up various repairmen (all played by Martin and Brown): a guy from Shaw, a Craig’s List guy looking to buy a drill, an exterminator, a carpet cleaner. And that bed gets a lot of action. Intimacy director Aryn Mott wisely stages the sex in wild, stop-action, stylized freezes – no missionary position here – and it’s very funny.

But despite exceptionally fine performances – especially Indelicato, Chan and Quarin – the second act of Home Deliveries didn’t really deliver for me. As a farcical romp, the characters are, by definition, one-dimensional and although Florence and Violet are sexually ‘empowered’ or ‘freed’, we don’t really care. Sexual politics have changed profoundly between 1970 and 2025 – that’s 55 years! – so their sexual liberation feels ho-hum. It’s the old ‘milkman’ trope tarted up for 2025.

But Home Deliveries is tight, fabulous looking and sounding, frequently funny and the performances, under Brown’s direction, are exactly what the script demands. However, I think there’s a Best Before date on plays like this and updating a 1970 sex comedy can go only so far in making decades-old sexual politics entertaining; this production decidedly outstrips the material.