Daddy’s good son now doting daughter
PAULINE is a good daughter. Every Tuesday, she visits her newly widowed father, tidies up his house, does his laundry and shops with him at the local supermarket.
Dad’s response: “Thank you, Paul.”
Of course we know about Pauline, the narrator of Emmanuel Darley’s “Tuesdays at Tesco’s,” as soon as we see her: She’s played by Simon Callow, a burly man whose sleeveless top exposes his big, meaty arms.
Directed by Simon Stokes, the show consists of Pauline meticulously recounting what happens on those Tuesdays. Callow, a busy actor across the pond, speaks in a dry, sometimes bemused tone, his voice as rich and creamy as butterscotch. Only rarely do we hear this wellmannered, middleaged woman’s frustra tion and occasional seething anger.
Her (unseen) father’s underhanded refusal to call her by her name hurts: She hasn’t been “Paul” for a while, yet Dad can’t accept his transsexual daughter for who she is — “me, myself, as I am,” Pauline says wistfully.
We never learn what Pauline does the other six days of the week. All she talks about is Tuesday, filled with cleaning, cooking and petty humiliations — like when Dad says “I can see your stubble” or a cashier at Tesco’s, the British supermarket chain, greets them with “Good morning, gentlemen.” Although only Callow speaks, there’s someone else onstage: a younger man (Conor Mitchell) who stands by a piano, occasionally plink-plonking a few keys. Most of the time he scribbles notes. Why he’s there is unclear and more distracting than anything — like the black lumps (coal?) lying around Robin Don’s set.
Callow doesn’t need those accoutrements: He has an easy control of the stage and effortlessly holds our attention. His Pauline can be proud and strong, but also vulnerable and wounded. She stands tall, even without the heels.