Travels With My Aunt
Reviewed by David Kashimba
Photo by Eric Chazankin

 “There is so much weariness and disappointment in travel that people have to open up…” writes Graham Greene, an author who did a great deal of traveling in his lifetime, “they have no reserves – you learn the most intimate secrets. You get an impression of a world peopled by eccentrics, of odd professions, almost incredible stupidities, and, to balance them, amazing endurances.” Indeed, these are the qualities we see in his novel Travels With My Aunt. These qualities are largely comic, and when his novel is adapted for the stage by Giles Havergal and directed by Ken Ruta at Cinnabar Theater, it becomes one of the most memorable and funniest comedies in theater history. But, more than anything, what propels this play over the top is that four very talented male actors play the parts of all the male and female characters adding a dimension of comedy that not only keeps the audience laughing, but also keeps them intrigued.

The play opens with bank manager Henry Pulling (Benjamin Privitt) contemplating scattering his mother’s ashes among the dahlias in his garden. But when he meets his eccentric Aunt Augusta (Kalli Jonsson) at his mother’s funeral, his life is turned upside down, and he’s changed forever as she whisks him off to travel the world with her and introduces him to a wide range of characters including her black lover and a war criminal hiding in South America. As we watch this mild-mannered British bank manager evolve into a worldly man of intrigue, we laugh at the shocking changes he endures as he delves deeper and deeper into the dark night of his own soul.

For tickets or more information about this comic gem, call 707-763-8920 or visit www.cinnabartheater.org.

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