Stage Review - Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl (Phoenix Theatre)

Stage Review - Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl
Presented By: Phoenix Theatre - Edmonds, WA
Show Run: April 04 - April 27, 2025
Date Reviewed: Sunday, April 07, 2025 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 105 Minutes (including a 15 minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

There are a few things that intrigued me about Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl, the latest on stage at Phoenix Theatre in Edmonds, running through April 27. First off, the title. For a theatre that I’ve come to expect well produced ensemble pieces, that are both funny and heartfelt, my first thought was, ok, this will surely meet the mark in the humor department, though whether it has heart or not, I’d just have to have a little trust that this show will include a little more than just laughs. Clearly a nautical theme, which was confirmed when I started reading a bit about the play before heading into it, it’s also set at the Jersey Shore, which touched a soft spot for me, as, being an East Coaster, I’ve spent many a summer vacationing at the Jersey Shore, like everyone in Allentown (and adjacent), so my interest in the play grew even more. For plays that I’ve not seen before, I try to go in as blind as I can, so that I can. be as subjective as possible, so it was just with this initial information I went into Sunday’s performance of Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl.

First, to answer my initial questions, the ones I had before even going in, yes, the play, directed by Renée Gilbert has both humor and heart, though I’d say more than many at Phoenix, this one skews heavily to the comic side of the spectrum. It’s a very funny play, most of that coming from the relationship between Melanie Calderwood’s Coral and Larry Albert’s Floyd. Coral, and her sister Oceana, played by Susan Connors, manage the Sea Hags, a rustic (real estate speak for “in desperate need of repair”) bed and breakfast along the Jersey Shore. Floyd is new-ish to town, having moved there after the death of this wife, but he’s a regular at the Sea Hags for breakfast, and the barbs he and Coral exchange are legendary, excellent one liners between them that are part of a back and forth in which they keep getting further and further under each others’ skin. The audience’s first evidence of this is when Floyd comes to the door of the cafe five minutes before opening and Coral refuses to open the door, regardless of how regular of a customer he is and even more regardless that her sister would have opened the door for him. But, as Coral says, “He’ll come back, he always does”. It’s off season in the beach town and the Sea Hags is the only place foolish enough to stay open. The sisters are working on getting the place up to date, though, through financial help from their cousin Marina and her rich boyfriend “The Captain”, though paying their investor back is becoming quite the challenge. Marina, played by Rita Baxter, doesn’t quite fit in with the other two ladies, after all, she has money and they don’t, but it’s not quite that simple. When the town’s mayor, who is also its justice of the peace, its dog catcher, its sheriff, and holder of any other office you can think of comes in and tells everyone in the cafe that there’s been an accident in which a man’s car careened off of a bridge and into the water, and the victim claims that he was saved by a beautiful mermaid, the looks that the women in the cafe share among each other is all that’s needed to see that there’s something else going on here.

What that something else is happened thirty years ago, when the three, Coral, Oceana, and Marina “rescued” three sailors themselves, rescued being in question, as was whether the incident that led to the sailors needing help was an accident or not. Just like this new story, where the rescued sailor imagined he was rescued by a mermaid, so did the three thirty years ago, and that is probably because they were. Coral, Oceana, and Marina are, in fact, mermaids, mermaids that fell in love with the men they rescued, and therefore have transitioned to the human world, and along with that, as tradition has it, have each given their vast individual treasure to those men. Well, all except Marina. Her “Captain” is still hanging around because she’s hidden her treasure, and is slowly letting him have access to it, whereas the other sisters gave their treasure to the men they rescued, Oceana to Hans, a gay man who took her money and ran back to his boyfriend Juergen in Norway, and Coral, who gave hers to Fernando, who then took it to his wife and four kids in Venezuela. As self-described middle-aged (and broke) mermaids, the sisters, and eventually with the help of cousin Marina, take it upon themselves to make sure the same mistake they made isn’t repeated by this new mermaid, which they’re convinced wasn’t a hallucination. What follows is an hysterical romp that sees the three “foolish fish girls” chasing after Pearl, the “new” mermaid to warn her about the perils of falling in love with a human while Nathan, the object of her affection chases after her. And while love has a funny way of bringing people together, or driving them apart, when a freak snowstorm forces everyone together in the Sea Hags Bed and Breakfast, what love has in store for this group is one surprise after the other.

I can’t say enough how funny this ensemble is and this group is just about as good as any that Phoenix has put on stage, but the individual performances are equal in the humor of their delivery. That starts with Melanie and Larry as Coral and Floyd. As I mentioned before, their banter together is so good, so funny, each a master of the one-liner, each insult funnier than the last and both experts at portraying grumpy and bitter middle-aged singles. Susan Connors as Oceana is more of the mature and responsible of the sisters and Rita Baxter as Marina is very good, especially in her emotional display when her treasure dries up and “The Captain” leaves her. One of the funniest scenes is between Rita, Susan, and Melanie at this moment and as they decide how they’re going to find and stop Pearl from pursuing her love for this sailor, because they know, from experience that she’ll not give up until she finds him. Pearl herself, played by Natalie Sampson, is as funny as the rest, but her humor is physical, in the way she walks, her mannerisms, how she picks things up and looks at them like she’s a toddler who sees everything for the first time, since she doesn’t have the ability to speak, at least yet. That would happen after she’s been out of the water for 24 hours. She carries such a good innocence and naïveté about her, and much of that is in her facial expressions, through the wonder in her eyes and in how she looks at everything and everyone. All that said, she’s also extremely determined to find her love, Nathan, played by John Rooney, and she’s steeled in her efforts, displayed perfectly in her body language. Finally, in this excellent ensemble, there’s Sheila, the woman of many badges, hilariously portrayed by Elizabeth A. Shipman. Elizabeth’s demeanor as Sheila is tough as nails if the nails were made of rubber, and the fact that her character wears so many literal hats in town drives much of the character’s humor. Each actor brings their own style of humor to their characters, some of it physical, some if it delivered through dialogue, and some with just an expression, while the pace of delivery and conversation between the actors helps to keep the pace of the show quick and the humor front of mine.

I do want to address the fact that this play is set at the Jersey Shore, as there’s really nothing specifically New Jersey about it, or anything that necessarily makes me feel nostalgic for those summers at the beach that I spent with my family as a kid. The design, though, does feel nautical, from the sea foam shade of blue on the walls of the Sea Hags B&B, to the various props and pieces scattered about, including fish netting, conch shells, paintings of tall ships, and other such accessories, it feels like the kind of long established place you’d find by the water, the kind that would likely be more popular with the locals than with tourists. Craig Marshall, as the technical director for the piece, is responsible for the set, the lighting, and the sound, while Susan Connors is the set decorator. Between Renée as the director and this pair, they have created a nice backdrop for this production, and in typical fashion at Phoenix Theatre, the set is like the canvas on which the show is painted, there aren’t any complex or time consuming set changes, the set is largely static, allowing the audience to focus on these excellent ensembles on stage. Another part of the creative design that fits in with Renée’s overall vision for the show is Elizabeth A. Shipman’s costume design. Elizabeth’s work includes some of the most creative pieces that I’ve seen on stage at Phoenix Theatre, and are almost characters unto themselves. Of course, there’s Pearl’s mermaid costume with requisite seashell bra, seaweed, and seashell jewelry accessories, but there’s also Sheila’s cold weather attire, her hat, thick coat, tactical vest, and cargo pants, Marina’s big fur coat, Floyd’s fisherman’s pea coat and hat, and so on. Each costume does a nice job in helping to inform the personality of each character.

Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl continues Phoenix Theatre’s tradition of putting up ensemble pieces that are delivered extremely well with both humor and heart, and while this one may skew more toward the comedy, it’s definitely not without its tender moments. The story of a trio of middle-aged mermaids trying their best to warn a younger cousin not to fall in love with a human lest she have their fate thrust upon her is, at its core, a love story, but it’s a very lighthearted and fun love story and may have a secret or two in store. It’s a show that is quickly paced, with dialogue that is witty and smartly written, and a cast that works extremely well together, all combining to make Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl just the latest example of what is a consistent trend in their ability to present fun and enjoyable ensemble-forward shows.

Foolish Fish Girls and the Pearl runs on stage at Phoenix Theatre in Edmonds through April 27. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.tptedmonds.org/.

Photo credit: Jim Sipes