Shirley Valentine’s Vallarta Adventure
EXTENDED » Thursdays through December 27
PRICE: Dinner and Show $36.93
LOCATION: Santa Barbara Theater, 351 Olas Altas, Old Town, Puerto Vallarta
WEBSITE: http://santabarbaratheater.com/index.html
EMAIL: contact@SantaBarbaraTheater.com
TEL: 322-223-2048
Dana Zeller-Alexis stars as the plucky, wisecracking housewife who decides to escape the grip of suburban drudgery and her quirky midlife crisis for a leap into the unknown–a self-affirming vacation to exotic Puerto Vallarta, Mexico!
We couldn’t be more excited about staging our own version of Willy Russell’s award-winning comedy, Shirley Valentine.
Combining elements from Russell’s original 1986 play and the popular 1989 movie that followed, we’ve also thrown in a few Mexican twists and Puerto Vallarta turns to make Shirley’s south of the border vacation an adventure to remember. Who would have thought she had the courage, the nerve, or the lingerie?
Brimming with pithy observations about life, love and marriage, Shirley’s plight strikes an all too familiar chord with “desperate housewives” longing to break out of their domestic ruts. She is a woman coming to grips with re-inventing her world, both hysterically funny one moment and heartrending the next.
The story focuses on Shirley Valentine-Bradshaw’s life before and after a transforming vacation. Wondering what happened to herself, feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley finds herself regularly talking to her kitchen wall until her best friend wins a trip-for-two to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Without a second thought she packs her bags, leaves a note on the table, and takes off on a two-week vacation of self-discovery. What she wants is to be her old self again–Shirley Valentine, the assertive adventurer. What she finds is romance and a new awareness of who she is and what her life can be with just a little effort on her part.
Want to find out how Shirley got the courage, the nerve, and the lingerie to go on vacation to Vallarta?
Dana Zeller is definitely up for the challenging role made famous by Pauline Collins on stage and screen. Ms. Zeller is superb at seizing the melodramatic moments (dealing with problems by talking to the wall, because there is no one else to talk to), turning them into forthright comedy (“Marriage is like the Middle East. There’s no solution.”), and coming up with the touching insight to make sense of it all (“The most challenging and significant relationship you will ever have, is the one you have with yourself.”).
Such bromides might appear self evident, but Ms. Zeller delivers them with substance and meaningfulness. At the end, Shirley is transformed, her middle-aged frump gone, and her Vallarta fairy tale adventure now the basis for a real life-changing rebound.