The 13th Chair
At Studio 58/Langara College until Dec. 4.
604-684-2787/www.ticketstonight.ca
Studio 58 really likes to mix it up-William Shakespeare one month, Arthur Miller the next- and who better than director Sarah Rodgers to be part of that seemingly crazy but actually carefully balanced theatre school season. Artistic director Kathryn Shaw handed Rodgers this almost 100-year-old Bayard Veiller script and let her have her way with it.
The 13th Chair, an early whodunit, premiered on Broadway in 1916 and then went on to enjoy film versions in 1919 (silent), 1929 and yet again in 1937. There's simply no way Rodgers could present this script straight up now; it's just too creaky. So she went to town on it.
For music, setting and costuming potential, Rodgers shifted the play ever so slightly into the Roaring '20s with a pretty Art Deco set by David Roberts; musical interludes (including "You Belong to Me" and "Ma, He's Making Eyes At Me") with lively singers Andrea Houssin and Joel Ballard, and Matt Grinke on the piano); and flapper gowns - many actually vintage - assembled by Mara Gottler. The prim and pretty primrose yellow gown on Stephanie Moroz is over a 100 years old. Unlike today, even flimsy-looking clothes were made to last back then.
Everything in Veiller's plot that was oh so suspenseful back in 1916 is sent way over the top. The young lovers, played by Tim Carlson (as Will Crosby) and Moroz (Helen O'Neill), do what lovers did back then: they bill and coo. Will is dapper and deferential to his wealthy father (Ryan McDonald) and doting mother (Sara Brown). Helen is sugar sweet and shy. Inspector Donohue, the detective who investigates the murder that happens at the party celebrating the couple's engagement, is played in the style of Inspector Jacques Clouseau by Kazz Leskard. He stumbles, he bumbles and he's thick as a brick. The femme fatale, played by Lindsay Winch in an elegant Gottler-designed red velvet robe, is trs fatale. She flirts, she pouts, she swans about. Madame La Grange (Cheyenne Mabberley), invited to hold a sance at the party held in Will's parents expensively appointed New York home, is more Irish than Paddy's pig. Mabberley shudders and trembles as her character's "spirit guide" contacts her with an important message from beyond the grave. Ooh, scary. And villainous Philip Mason (played by Alex Rose) does everything but twirl his mustache. It's all very funny with the little piano trills to point up the action (in the style of silent film) and the bits of startled, frozen action. And when Moroz turns those forlorn baby blues on the audience when Helen is accused of murder by the blundering inspector, it's hilarious.
Rodgers has established herself as a director with a terrific sense of style going back to a 2004 production of Under Milk Wood at the Freddy Wood. Her irrepressible enthusiasm and energy has really sparked this cast of sixteen. Nowhere does this vitality show as well as in the full ensemble numbers, choreographed by Emily Henney (who also plays Helen Trent.) "My Baby Said Yes" is an excuse for all-out singing and dancing with pearl rope necklaces bouncing and feather boas flying. It's as good a curtain number as you'll see anywhere.
