A Review of Catherine Loves You by Anthony Herman
“I am a lightning bolt — I just don’t know where to strike”
Welcome to this somewhat biased review of Anthony Herman’s play Catherine Loves You as the reviewer knows her and some of the actors. Then again, it is hard to not recognize talent when it does not merely tap you on the shoulder but fully slaps you in the face. Hard. If you are a long-time reader of this zine, the name probably also rings a bell since Herman has written many beautiful pieces for BTSB during her time as an English student. But on to the review!
Catherine Loves You is set in Victorian England and tells the story of Catherine whose husband has sailed away for work for a few years. The audience gets to see Catherine’s transformation from a timid wife to something new as she struggles with her identity and role as a woman. Throughout the three years that the play depicts, she meets new friends who guide her, some with kindness and others with pressure, to her full bloom.
Herman both wrote and directed Catherine Loves You, and it had a 3-night run at the NoName Theatre in Helsinki. This was the play’s first production. It was presented by The Finn-Brit Players, an amatour drama society that stages both bigger and smaller productions.
The setting of Victorian England works well combined with the quite contemporary discussion around love and womanhood. The staging is rather simple, as the whole story happens in sitting rooms, which have traditionally been women’s domain. This domestic setting also amplifies the conflicts and overflowing emotions as Catherine stands up to her mother for the first time in her life and begins to question the strict rules and expectations that society has set up for her and other women. While there are no men on stage, they are not left out of the story. Their role, for once, is to be the ones discussed, whose voices are diminished and left out. Still, their influence and power is palpable and undeniable which adds to Catherine’s plight.
The casting was also a success, and all the actors brought life to their characters. Saga Arola, who played Catherine, shone like a star, and I dare say that her performance did not leave a single soul cold in the theatre. It would have been easy for the actors to become too much or not enough in the sparse parlor setting, but instead, they managed to make the scenes lively and life-like. The light design helped with this, moving the audience from one sitting room to another within seconds. The costuming was simple and quite contemporary but still close enough to Victorian styles as to not break the illusion. In fact, all the costuming choices reflected the characters’ inner worlds well, providing the audience further insight into their personalities and values.
Overall, Herman’s play was a beautiful critique of both society’s gender ideals and norms as well as past and current waves of feminism. Catherine Loves You is poignant and current with its story and keeps close to its core message. It does not stray or embellish nor does it leave anything unexplained. I look forward to seeing what Herman writes and directs next.
What: Anthony Herman’s play Catherine Loves You
When: 6.6.–8.6.2025
Where: NoName Theatre
Presented by: The Finn-Brit Players
Image: Tommy Whitehouse
