James Karas
The
Wedding Party
credits Kristen Thomson as the playwright but we are informed that the play is
based on characters created with Trish Lindstrom, Tony Nappo, Moya O’Connell,
Tom Rooney and Bahia Watson. This could be described uncharitably as a play
created by a committee or a marvelous venture into experimental character
creation shaped into a play by Thompson.
A
pretty woman with big breasts from a working class background is marrying a man
from a wealthy family. We do not hear about his sexual organ presumably because
if you have money size does not matter. We never see the young couple so the
size I mentioned is straight from the play.
Kristen
Thomson, Tom Rooney and Jason Cadieux in one of their many roles in The Wedding
Party.
We
have six actors (Jason Cadieux, Virgilia Griffith, Trish Lindström, Moya
O'Connell, Tom Rooney and Kristen Thomson) represent what looks like a horde of
characters that make up the guests of the wedding party. The action takes place
in the reception area and in the dining room of the posh hall where the wedding
takes place.
We
have parents, grandparents, siblings and friends acted by the six actors with
some very fast costume changes and with considerable demands on them to change
demeanor and speech patterns for the vastly different characters and situation.
The
bride’s mother is a low-life lush who gets progressively more soused until her
condition causes the inevitable altercation. The groom’s father is an officious
snob who does not approve of the bride because she is on a lower rung of the social ladder than his family.
Grandma is nuts and there are some obnoxious loudmouths, an uncle who shows up
dressed in gym clothes and a cousin of the groom who drinks too much and is
dressed as if he were going to a ball game. And let’s not forget the family dog
which is treated like a person and the magician Vlad.
How
do people behave at a wedding? This is a
happy occasion and everybody has to be happy or act as if they are happy and
let everyone know that they are happy. Happiness does not mean inner serenity
and contentment but loudly expressed jollity and emotional expression that
ranges from the maudlin to the ecstatically ebullient. Some of the happiness is
expressed in bad jokes but we are supposed to join in the agony and the ecstasy
if I may coin a phrase
Fissures
in the family fabric appear. The father of the groom has an identical twin
brother whom he has not seen for ten years appear with his son Tiger, the lout.
The bride’s mother becomes more obnoxious with the consumption of alcohol until
all hell breaks loose.
Is
it enjoyable? Mostly. The characters and the situations that the group created
are rendered so well that they appear all too real. If you saw these people at
a real wedding you will sidle away from them and go for a drink at the free
bar. You don’t want to watch them or listen to their idiocies.
The
twin brothers are played by the same actor and they cannot be on stage at the
same time. Our credulity is stretched. The Menaechmi Twins, The Comedy of Errors and
Twelfth Night, among other plays,
have covered much of the ground available for mistaken identity of
twins and Thomson and Co. have very little to add to it.
The
nippy speed of the actors and their innate comic talent in representing an
array of characters at breakneck speed go some way in rescuing the production.
Director Chris Abraham had his hands full orchestrating and directing the
traffic alone of the six members of the cast.
The
set by Julie Fox managed to suggest a posh hall with a few well-chosen pieces
of furniture. Ming Wong’s costumes are just what you would expect to find at a
wedding that is from the simple and fashionable to the gauche.
The
production is by Crow’s Theatre and Talk is Free Theatre in the spanking new
theatre at Carlaw and Dundas. This is the former factory district that has been
revamped into spanking new condos. And it is in the east end of Toronto, an
area where theatres are about as plentiful as oases in the desert. A great step
forward.
_____
The Wedding Party by Kristen Thomson continues
until February 11, 2017 at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario
M4M 2T1. http://crowstheatre.com/
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