REVIEW: Ditzy old Lemoine sparkles with fresh cast
Playwright Stewart Lemoine writes in many genres. He has penned funny plays that say something about human relationships, and funny plays that have nothing but entertaining us on their ditzy little minds, plus everything in between.
Vidalia, an older work last seen here in 2002 and remounted at the Varscona Theatre until Oct. 12, squarely falls under the “ditzy” rubric.
One is struck by the playwright-director’s uncanny ability to spot young talent. The list of performers active on Edmonton, national and international stages who owe their careers to Lemoine’s unerring eye is long and impressive. Underlining his faith and talent-spotting abilities, he often gives his young protégés central roles in his plays the first time out. Over the years he has developed a well-oiled highly professional “stock company” of superb performers, and often mixes the newbies with his greybeards with positive results. That is certainly true with the latest iteration of Vidalia (which is a type of onion) – pairing rookies Helen Belay and Chris Pereira with practiced farceurs Belinda Cornish and Andrew MacDonld-Smith.
Light, elegant and great fun, Vidalia is one of those comedies that if anyone stopped for a moment to think, everything would sort itself out – but then you wouldn’t have much of a play, would you? The loopy plot has a character identified only as “Man in Suit” (Pereira) carrying his lunch to work in a briefcase. He is accosted while getting his morning coffee by a cheerful fellow patron, the “Girl in Red Jacket” (Belay) with a great pick up line:
She: “Hi!”
He: “Hello. Ah, should I know you?”
She: “Actually, you don’t. I mean you should know me. But you don’t.”
Soon two other mysterious characters (Cornish – “Woman in Glasses,” and MacDonald-Smith – “Man in Trench Coat”) show up with identical briefcases. It doesn’t take long for the three briefcases to get mixed up, which provides a rickety structure on which to build the rest of the play.
The four actors squeeze every last comic drop out of Lemoine’s stylish dialogue. No Lemoine character says, “Be Quiet” when they could say, “Circumspection, please.” It takes major comic talents to deliver dialogue like, “I’m going to die. I need help!” The reply: “I’m not going to help you if you sweat the small stuff.”
The characters are familiar Lemoine creations. Pereira is an unwilling innocent who has no idea what’s happening. The hapless Man in Suit seems to be an ordinary Joe who finds himself in the middle of some adventure, and is forced with ever increasing panic to join in. At one point he is introduced as, “Pepe, the tailor from Pomerania.”
“Ahh,” remarks another character. “That would make you a Pomeranian.”
Pereira navigates his way around Lemoine’s written dialogue as if born speaking in the playwright’s patented sophisticated and often convoluted words. MacDonald-Smith maneuvers through his mysterious character’s twisty evolution with his usual suave presence. and is one of our few actors who can freight Lemoine’s dialogue with many levels of comic import. Cornish’s first appearance is quite “severe,” but she warms up just in time to become risibly unglued when she goes into one of Lemoine’s hilarious hysterical fits. (See: Cocktails at Pam’s). Belay is the frolicsome motor-mouthed catalyst who sets the whole series of events in motion and then joins in for the fun of the ride.
Watching these four perform so effortlessly under Lemoine’s direction one is struck by one of the director’s great strengths – his actors not only speak the words but listen intently to the others which makes for a solid supportive communal effort. As usual, the elegant character-appropriate costumes are deigned by Leona Brausen. Chantel Fortin’s wheeled set ingeniously becomes all sorts of settings exuberantly moved by the actors between scenes.
In a work as weightless as this, the result is as ephemeral as spun cotton candy and an utterly delightful 90 minutes of theatre.
Photos by Mat Busby
