Fiona Byrne, Sanjay Talwar, Tom Rooney and Sochi Fried in Heartbreak House.Supplied
- Title: Heartbreak House
- Written by: Bernard Shaw
- Performed by: Tom Rooney, Allison Edwards-Crewe, Sochi Fried, Martin Happer, Graeme Somerville, Julia Course, Jason Cadieux, Neil Barclay
- Director: Tim Carroll
- Company: Shaw Festival
- Venue: Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre
- City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
- Year: Runs until Oct. 3
Near the end of Heartbreak House, playing in the Shaw Festival’s intimate studio theatre until October, a mechanical turtle begins to crawl across the stage. A near-inaudible motor propels the creature forward, a flickering candle resting on its shell as the reptile moves from place to place.
It’s a fitting metaphor for the lopsided, slow-moving Heartbreak House, the only play in the Shaw Festival’s 2026 season written by the company’s namesake scribe. Director Tim Carroll splits the three-act play into two parts, the second of which runs nearly three times as long as the first. While the 40-minute exposition is lively and funny – thanks mostly to Tom Rooney, who armours the increasingly batty Captain Shotover with the actor’s trademark dry humour – Heartbreak House’s back half feels endless and rubbery, like a turtle forever in search of its next sunning spot.
Martin Happer and Allison Edwards-Crewe in Heartbreak House.David Cooper/Supplied
Then again, the payoff of the final act is (nearly) worth the wait. Heartbreak House’s genius lies in its rather Chekhovian approach to plot: That is to say, there isn’t much, in the macro sense. Things happen; relationships splinter before bonding back together; a burglar makes a half-hearted attempt at robbing the Shotover estate.
But Shaw isn’t particularly interested in the superficial trimmings of well-to-do romance, the comings and goings of the rich fools breaking each other’s hearts in luxury. Instead, much as in the 2023 film The Zone of Interest, Shaw frames the human drama within a much more existential context: a brewing war that threatens to eradicate the English countryside in its entirety, and soon.
As such, the play’s timing is intentionally ambiguous, thanks in part to Ximena Pinilla’s exquisite costumes. Black-and-white dresses, heavy with beads, anticipate the eye-popping fashions of the 1920s, but simultaneously adhere to more vintage silhouettes. Pinilla’s set, too, is sparse, with few clues that gesture toward the First World War (or anything else, for that matter): On the ground, plain dining chairs suggest Shotover’s couches and settees, while two more hang by thin fishing twine from the ceiling of the Studio Theatre.
Within the walls of the Shotover estate, a far less life-threatening kind of trouble hangs in the air: Ellie Dunn (a lovely Allison Edwards-Crewe) has been invited to a dinner party with her father (Neil Barclay) and rich fiancé (Graeme Somerville).
Happer and Julia Course in Heartbreak House.David Cooper/Supplied
Before long, Captain Shotover makes clear that he may be losing his faculties – it seems as though he doesn’t recognize his daughter Ariadne (Sochi Fried), who’s spent the past 20 years in Australia. Party hostess Hesione (Julia Course), Shotover’s other daughter, spends her days toying with the women who fall in love with her husband Hector (Martin Happer). Unfortunately, one of those women includes Ellie, whose competing feelings for her much older fiancé are clouded by his presumed wealth.
Over the course of nearly three hours in total, we watch the various couples profess their love for one another, only to yank their affections back when they’re not reciprocated. Their champagne problems chafe with Shaw’s usual brand of social critique, but when the group’s comeuppance crash-lands into Shotover’s back garden, the kaboom is powerful, if not quite enough so to justify the second part’s runtime. (It’s a three-act play, complete with songs and lengthy changeovers between scenes – surely a second intermission could have lessened the back half’s heft?)
A clever dramaturgical intervention by Carroll, however, adds extra texture to the script, particularly in the first act. Carroll’s addition of a butler (Michael Therriault) and maid (Kristi Frank) helps to break down the fourth wall between the action and the audience: Intermittently, the servants narrate stage directions and character descriptions, creating an additional layer of class commentary as the lovers enter and exit Shotover’s home.
In the same spirit as the romantic frivolities at Heartbreak House’s centre, Carroll’s production is one of high highs (the performances) and low lows (the length). And while I wouldn’t recommend it for most casual attendees of the Shaw Festival, Carroll’s twist on the play’s damnation of the English aristocracy is intriguing, if not altogether successful. Much like that mechanical turtle in the final act, the play requires patience and curiosity – values that the ritzy inhabitants of the Shotover residence could do worse than to find themselves.