CHRISTMASTOWN – REVIEW OF 2024 PRODUCTION IN PORT HOPE

Reviewed by James Karas

Christmastown is a new play by Briana Brwon that premiered at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope on August 17, 2024. It is an ambitious comedy with many farcical elements that has some virtues and some aspects that are mystifying.

The small town of Kringle, Ontario needs to give its economy a kick in the butt or bring tourists to prop up its financial health. The citizens decide to promote Kringle like a year-round holiday attraction using the theme of Christmas but at the same time reflect inclusivity.

The town reeve (and gas station owner) is the lively Mary (Deborah Drakeford), dressed in Santa attire, who, with help of townspeople like convenience store owner Nora (Alison Deon), her teenage daughter Adeline (Mirabella Sundar Singh), Sam (Darrel Gamotin) and Jeff (Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski) will achieve the desired goal.                       

                                 

Mirabella Sundar Singh, Deborah Drakeford, Alison Deon, 

Darrel Gamotin, and Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski. 
Photo: Sam Moffatt

Despite the heatwave, the townspeople of Kringle start early, say in August but run into an impenetrable obstacle. The usual terms used to celebrate Christmas have been copyrighted by a big and nasty company and if Kringle is to pursue its ambition it must comply with the trade mark restrictions of the TM owner.

Kringle will be visited by several Trademark inspectors (all of them played by Christy Bruce). There is some magic involved, some of which escaped me and there is a snitch among the townspeople but all is par for the course of the farce.

There is a lot of commotion, door-slamming exits and entrances, much over-acting that can be considered normal fare in a farce. Some parts of the play were unclear as in the appearance of one inspector and the showing of a video that I could not follow.

Parts of Santa clothes are worn by some of the cast, Nora is shown dressed in a large box like a Christmas present, Jeff shows up representing an elf with his well-built upper body naked and some other colourful attires. Jeff who acts very silly turns out to be gay and is adopting a little girl.

Despite the energetic and sometimes overdone acting, some of the jokes misfired. The play is creaky and seems to be getting nowhere. It could use the help of rewrites and perhaps a helping hand from a dramaturge.

I enjoyed my first visit to the pleasant atmosphere of the Capitol Theatre. The main street of Port Hope is under serious construction but with a bit of care you can find your way. The theatre has 350 seats and there were volunteers all over. I asked one of them about their number and she told me 350. The program puts the number at 150.   
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Christmastown by Briana Brown opened on August 17 and will run until September 1, 2024 at the Capitol Theatre, Port Hope, Ontario.

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

THE NORMAN CONQUESTS – REVIEW OF THREE HITS FROM SOULPEPPER

Derek Boyes, Albert Schultz, Oliver Dennis & Sarah Mennell in Table Manners

Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

 

Reviewed by James Karas

Some forty years ago Alan Ayckbourn wrote a hilarious trilogy called The Norman Conquests. It consists of three play entitled Table Manners, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden. Soulpepper revived the three plays last November and it has bought them back for those who missed them. We should be grateful for the laughter and sheer joy of seeing of seeing these very funny plays. In case you are wondering, the title of the trilogy has nothing to do with the invasion of England in 1066.

 

The three plays have the same six people, in different parts of the same house, on the same weekend, involved in the same plot. Yet the plays are different, self-contained and can be seen in any order. That is a major achievement for a playwright.  

 

Table Manners, the first part of the trilogy, takes place in the dining room; Living Together is set in the living room and Round and Round the Garden, in the garden. In each play we have a family get-together of six distinct, eccentric, dysfunctional and hilarious people. Ted Dykstra directs the fine Soulpepper cast with inventiveness, imagination and comic brilliance.

 
All the action takes place in a house in the country. Reg (Derek Boyes) and his wife Sarah (Fiona Reid) arrive at the house to look after Sarah’s mother so that Annie (Laura Condlin) can get away for a weekend.
 
Ruth’s husband Norman (Albert Schultz) also arrives and we soon learn that he is to be Annie’s weekend companion. Annie just happens to be Ruth’s and Reg’s sister and she has already rolled on the carpet with Norman. Annie’s neighbour Tom (Oliver Dennis) completes the sextet of characters that people the three plays.
 

The cast ekes out every laugh that Ayckbourn wrote and many more thanks to outstanding acting and directing. Shultz as Norman is irresponsible, irrepressible, rude, crude, lazy, slovenly and hilarious. He is a total slob who somehow manages to conquer his wife’s apparently sensible and attractive sister as well as his brother-in-law Reg’s wife Sarah. He exudes some kind of charm in the midst of countless uncharming qualities. Schultz takes advantage of every opportunity and uses his ample comic talent to give us a riotous protagonist.

 

Fiona Reid as Sarah is a fussy, idiotic, psychotic lunatic who manages to be outrageously funny. Boyes as Reg is bombastic, loud, frustrated and puts all those traits to marvelous comic use.
 
Norman’s eccentricities are surpassed by his wife Ruth who is cold, shortsighted, nuts and nasty and done superbly by Mennell.
 
Annie is single, lonely, frustrated and all alone in looking after her invalid and very high maintenance mother whom we never see. She is sensible except in her relations with Norman and her neighbour Tom. She agrees to spend a weekend in a hotel with Norman against all the rules of common sense and prudence but without offending the rules for producing laughter. A fine job by Condlin.

Competing for the top spot on hilarity scale in a crowded field is neighbour Tom, Annie’s maladjusted neighbor and would-be lover. Dennis wears a red hairpiece and looks like the eternal misfit. Indecisive, dense, awkward, Tom becomes hilarious in the hands of Dennis.

 
The plays are done in the small Michael Young Theatre with the playing area in the middle and seats on each side. This setup is not particularly suitable for plays that have numerous entrances and exits through specific doors. The usual proscenium stage works much better.
 

But that is a small quibble over a terrific production of this marvelous trilogy.

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The Norman Conquests (Table Manners, Living Together and  Round and Round the Garden) by Alan Ayckbourn continues until March 8, 2014 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca  416 866-8666