Take off, eh – to the Mayfield’s best, most Canadian jukebox musical!
Be prepared for a warm bath in nostalgia – and Canadian nostalgia at that.
The Mayfield Dinner Theatre has achieved notable success with its jukebox musicals – at least judging from its unending Niagara of tribute shows. Over the years they have mounted British Invasions, various appreciations of Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, pop charts by decades, the Beatles, folk music and so on.
Some observers have wondered why producer Van Wilmott has not given much shrift to the massive Canadian contributions to the pop music scene. Well, the Mayfield has decided to address that in one big evening celebrating all things Canadian – calling it Canada 151. It plays until Jan. 27.
And, oh, what a feeling, what a rush. When caught up in the enthusiasms of just enjoying a terrific evening of entertainment there is a temptation to reach for superlatives. But I think I’m safe in suggesting that Canada 151 is one of the most captivating and engaging evenings the Mayfield has ever made.
Scripts in these things tend to be words to keep the music apart. Not so here. Wilmott has teamed up his regular scriptwriter Will Marks with one Gerrad Everard. Everard is also one of the multi-talented cast. The result is funny – often verging on hilarious. The introductions have a sly laugh-up-your-winter-parka-sleeve humour and the evening is peppered with some quite funny skits – as when Stompin’ Tom comes out to sing The Hockey Song and an impromptu hockey game breaks out. Which, of course, is interrupted when someone yells,”CAR!” Everything stops and the nets are taken off the road so a car can drive by. Someone complains, “Why did you set up the game on the one street in town that has any traffic?” And the game begins again.
In a take-off on “Hinterland Who’s Who” we are introduced to the Canadian Cougar. There is a mighty roar … and a hockey mom appears. Of course, those ultimate slackers Bob and Doug McKenzie from SCTV show for a bit – as do the Trailer Park Boys, who morph into an a cappella group to sing a rousing version of Stan Roger’s Barrett’s Privateers.
Erin Gruber’s set is a huge abstract map of Canada in the background that begins in mountains and ends in the sea. It becomes a huge screen where Gruber can project lovely and often transporting pictures of our country. The band is all decked out in lumberjack shirts.
One of the reasons for the success of the jukebox musicals at the Mayfield is the love and care lavished on them. They are produced within an inch of their musical lives with great attention to detail and delivery. The driving house band is composed of some of our finest musicians who can not only express themselves, but exhibit an uncanny ability to recreate the sound of the original recordings. And over the years the theatre has developed a stock company of performers who can morph into anyone from Ringo Starr to Tom Jones.
That care is evident here, under the sure hand of director Kate Ryan, and the music touches the Canadian heart in so many places. At first, guided by a smooth Ron MacLean and a bombastic Don Cherry, the evening goes back to the middle of the 20th Century with bows to Tommy Hunter, and Juliet, but then quickly moves through the early stirrings of Canadian pop music with Anne Murray (Snowbird) and the Crew Cuts (Sh Boom). Joni Mitchel sings Big Yellow Tax. K.d. Lang – in the midst of her 1984 teen-age cowboy-punk phase where we knew her looking for a gig in Edmonton – shows up to warble Bee Bop A Lula. Edmonton’s Bobby Curtola sings Fortune Teller and the Barenaked Ladies wonder what to do if they “had a million dollars.”
What a list of overachievers we are. Just a few more that show up are: Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, The Band, The Guess Who, Alanis Morissette, The Tragically Hip, Gord Downie, The Rankin Family, Blue Rodeo, well … you can probably fill in much of the rest yourself. The cast is all so talented and able to switch characters so quickly that it’s hard to identify just who is performing what. There are moments that will lift you out of your seat.
The first act ends with a barnburner, set afire by a couple of rousing ditties from the Great Big Sea songbook. The production doesn’t ever quite make it back to that height – in fact, later in Act 2, it tends to get lost in the weeds (Justin/Avril) – but the climax sure ends the evening in a memorable manner. This is one of the things the Mayfield does so well – it piles the songs, one upon the other, until you wonder where the cast gets so much energy in a show that goes on for some two and a half hours. The evening ends with a serious, but spirited reading of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah followed by an ever rising medley of rock tunes, including such sure-fire foot stomping anthems as Oh What a Feeling and Raise a Little Hell.
The soundtrack of our lives indeed!
Photos by Ed Ellis
