Article content It doesn’t take long for the audience at the Varscona Theatre to learn they’re in for a ride with The Oculist’s Holiday. That’s because from the moment its central character, Mrs. Marian Ogilvy (Beth Graham) appears solo at centre stage to speak to graduates of the Southern Ontario Business College, it’s clear this is no ordinary commencement address circa 1934.
There will be no exhortation to the young ladies in the auditorium to pursue new heights of typing prowess. Indeed, Marian — a self-assured career woman in a sensible suit and heels — has another agenda entirely. She feels a “profound need” to warn the assembled.
Upon learning the warning involved a man and a hotel room, I, for one, had my steno pad at the ready. Like many Lemoine plays, The Oculist’s Holiday has an exotic setting, in this case, Lausanne Switzerland. That’s where Marian, a book editor in Toronto, has decided to take a holiday, alone.
Arriving without a hotel reservation, she finds herself in a charming guest house run by a “curious sort of noblewoman of mixed pedigree.” Princess Volodevsky (Cathy Derkach) is the perfect hostess, delivering charm and tumblers of Lillet in equal measure. At first, it looks like Marian is the princess’s only guest, but we soon discover that Ted Fletcher (Oscar Derkx) is also in the building.
A handsome American eye doctor, he has taken a break to think about whether he should assume his father’s optometry practice in Ohio. Th.
