THEATRE REVIEW

MARCH 2025 | Volume 249

 

A feminist romp, Home Deliveries is the English-language premiere of Catherine Léger’s theatrical adaptation of a 1970s Québécois erotic film. Updated to contemporary times by Léger, beautifully translated by Leanna Brodie and briskly directed by Ruby Slippers’ Diane Brown, it’s about married women whose sex lives have dried up along with their vitality. After a while they decide to do something about it.

Violet (Stefania Indelicato), still breastfeeding her toddler, hears noises. She can’t decide whether it’s a cawing crow or someone having an orgasm. Husband Ben (Dan Tait Brown) scoffs at her complaints, then goes on the road—he’s a pharmaceuticals rep—where he has sex with a nameless colleague (Alina Quarin).

Next-door neighbor Florence (Aurora Chan) has an 11-year-old and is on anti-depressants. Her husband David (Daniel Martin) keeps reminding her that she’s suicidal and shouldn’t go off the drugs. Neither wife is getting any sex and neither husband seems to mind.

The wives heal themselves. After Florence goes off her meds and Violet stops breastfeeding, they inspire each other to break the impasse with various strangers—a cable guy, an exterminator, a carpet cleaner, a delivery person (all played by the other three actors). Starved for sex and having gotten a taste, the wives decide they want a banquet. Much of the second act is devoted to funny, athletically mimed, semi-graphic (fully clothed) sex with the visitors on the giant four-person-wide bed that dominates Heipo Leung’s handsome set. Christian Ching’s lighting and Hannah DuMez’s sound also help a lot.

The husbands’ responses are as neurotic as the women’s behaviour seemed to be at the beginning. Wannabe stud Ben takes it all personally. Not just his wife’s polyamory but his girlfriend’s cavalier attitude towards sex threatens his manhood. Schlubby David goes on the anti-depressants that Florence went off and drugs himself into a stupor. But the ending suggests the possibility of comic reconciliations.

The witty script suffers from a little too much of the same in Act Two. I enjoyed all the performances, and the actors all seemed to be enjoying themselves—the men specially when they weren’t playing the husbands. And everyone seemed very committed in those mimed sex scenes! Kudos to intimacy coordinator Aryn Mott.

The comic star of the show for me was Alina Quarin, whose deadpan delivery and perfect timing as both the girlfriend and the delivery person were hilarious.

 

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