Eva seems like someone you might know, or want to know. There’s nothing flashy about her. She’s an honest, hardworking waitress just trying to get by. Sure, she leans a little towards the obsessive-compulsive, but actress Sherry Smith makes her odd ways believable and even endearing. The world that playwright Pam Calabrese MacLean has created for Eva seems at first to be the world where you and I live. But as Eva slowly reveals her quiet desperation and the depths of her longing, it becomes apparent that the place she inhabits is closer to something from a fairy tale, where adults and children ride merry-grounds together in the park, mothers search for magical soup recipes to fill their empty daughters, and the princess lays frozen, waiting for a kiss to set her free. This poetic script and Smith’s brilliant acting make Sunnyside Café a thoroughly enchanting theatre experience.
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This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2009.