Actor Nicola Lipman understands her latest character from the inside.
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In Joan MacLeod’s Another Home Invasion, the actor plays Jean, a tough, resilient woman who’s waiting for an opening in the seniors’ home for herself and her dependant husband. Offstage, Lipman’s currently organizing her father’s 95th birthday party,
“I’ve come to a time in my own life where the script has real resonance,” says Lipman, who recently premiered the show at Alberta Theatre Projects.
“If I’d had a chance to do the piece a decade ago, I wouldn’t have understood it quite the same way. Now I and lots of people I know recognize this couple.”
In all her work, Lipman knows how to share her heart with the audience, most recently as a woman whose history contains equal parts love and horror (Scorched) and a mother whose son can’t escape the memory of the Montreal Massacre (The December Man).
MacLeod (The Shape Of A Girl, Jewel) builds up Jean’s life with details and memories, creating an indomitable woman determined to prove to family and caregivers that she can function independently.
“There’s nothing special about Jean,” says Lipman. “She represents many people. I love that she’s innocent rather than ignorant of the world, and she’s forced to make new plans and decisions when her everyday life starts collapsing.
“There’s a huge population of people like that, people who are truly trying to make choices in their lives, do things on their own. But when they’re given new rules and ways of living, the choices they have to make become even more complex.”
The appearance of a stranger at her door kicks Jean into a heightened state of anxiety, revealing both her strength and vulnerability.
“Yet it’s a comedy, too,” adds Lipman, a fan of MacLeod’s though she’s never previously performed in the playwright’s work.
“Joan’s writing is so simple yet so funny. She can turn the story from despair to hilarity in an instant, making each episode vibrate with dramatic tension.”
See Opening.
