A native of England, Jan Wallace went to acting school there and, right after finishing the course, she was hired by a small London Rep Company but never got on stage. That was life for her, even through marriage and raising children. She didn’t act until the family moved to the United States. She finally got parts in New York and other regional theaters, but the play that made a difference to her career on stages is Shirley Valentine. And that’s extended to her life. Jan’s first identification with Shirley was actually as a child. She had a fictitious friend she talked to, just as Shirley did to her wall in her play. And just as Shirley’s life took off when she went to another country, so did Jan’s when she adopted Shirley’s persona. From here on in Jan’s present play, she interweaves autobiographical accounts with lines, events, and people in the English play. They had similar temperaments and feelings along with a best friend they could do some sharing with. Wallace acts out parts of the play’s scenes throughout. She does pretty much of a synopsis of Act II with explanations and interpolation of her own feelings from time to time. It’s as if her identification with Shirley Valentine took place most strongly in the Greece she actually knew mainly from the play. Now that Jan’s lost her husband and then a boyfriend, she feels the romantic life possibly promised to Shirley when her husband came to see her is no longer for her interpreter Jan. But this play, and perhaps others to come, makes her “embrace the life that I have.” The audience seemed to like her choice.
