Heroine charms in Acadia’s latest play

The prospect of sitting through Acadia Repertory Theatre’s new production of the old play “Shirley Valentine” may make you cranky. Another Willy Russell play – the first was “Educating Rita” – about a disenfranchised, working-class British woman? And, worse, a pop-culture piece from the 1980s?

Couldn’t you just stay home and watch reruns of “Rhoda” or read “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and be done with it?

That snarky attitude will fade within 15 minutes of watching Cheryl Willis breathe vibrancy into the downtrodden Shirley, whose husband is an oaf, whose children are duds and whose life has led her unprepared for the fearful 40s.

If the plot sounds like old territory, it is. But Willis captures the comedy of the role without sentimentalizing the poignancy of derailed dreams, and the performance shines up the gold in a script that could be tarnished by age.

Shirley’s back story is right out of the pages of “Reviving Ophelia”: Somewhere early in life, she gave up her gumption to become a wife, a mother and, when the show opens, a rather washed-up woman whose daily goal is to have chips and eggs on the table the moment her husband walks through the door at night. Once upon a time, Shirley liked the thrill of jumping off rooftops and the goofy adoration of newlywed life. But those daring days are long gone, replaced, blandly, by chips and eggs.

When a divorced girlfriend wins a trip for two to Greece, Shirley sneaks out of the house with her suitcases. What happens in Greece reawakens her sense of adventure and, more important, her sense of self.

Much of Russell’s script is outdated. Man-hating feminists, husbands who leave their wives for other men, the prudishness of marriage and sisterhood being powerful until the first hunk walks by were not all that interesting the first time they surfaced, and they seem hackneyed all over again. Furthermore, Shirley’s extramarital lust is not nearly as ribald as it pretends to be – or even as it would have been in 1990 when the show moved from being a hit in London’s West End to being a hit on Broadway.

But jaded theatergoers might be lured in by Willis’ superb work, and Michael Kissen’s fine-tuned directing. Willis looks dowdy and pale in Shirley’s mud-colored kitchen where her closest friends are a wall, off of which she bounces her emotions, and a bottle of Riesling, into which she drowns them. She’s an unlikely, ungainly heroine until she lands in Greece. There she steps out of the ruins of her life and finds an odyssey – and a taverna – of her own.

Retro? You bet. But Willis makes the time warp worthwhile, so much so that her performance reveals that some attitudes about women and their dreams – or maybe anyone’s dreams – may not be quite retro enough.

A final note: Willis and her husband, C. Andrew Mayer, make up the guest artistic team at Acadia Rep this season while executive director Ken Stack is on sabbatical. They both have roots in the Minneapolis theater scene, from which they have imported several guest artists this summer. For those who haven’t visited the theater in recent years, the current production is a promising beginning to a fresh approach. Other shows in the lineup include Alan Ayckbourn’s “Round and Round the Garden” (July 17-29), Richard Greenberg’s “The Dazzle” (July 31-Aug. 12) and Agatha Christie’s “Spider’s Web” (Aug. 14-Sept. 2).

Acadia Repertory Theatre will present “Shirley Valentine” through July 15 at the Masonic Lodge in Somesville. For information, call 244-7260 or visit www.acadiarep.com.