I can’t believe that as long as Mrs. That Dan Guy and I have been living in Calgary now, and as much as we get off the sofa and out to see shows when we can, the trip we made to the historic Pumphouse Theatre here last night was our first. Happily, it was a grand introduction.
Workshop Theatre is currently staging a production of Michael Green’s “The Coarse Acting Show” – a community theatre production lampooning community theatre productions. Imagine anything that could go wrong in an amateur staging – lines delivered out of sequence, stagehands wandering on to cavalierly adjust props while the actors are still in character forging on, “murdered” corpses having to place themselves onstage mid-scene – a literal basket full of boo-boos, intentionally.
You can’t help but think of the terrific little film from a few years back, “Waiting For Guffman”, where a similar theme frustrates a marquee director who struggles to coax along the amateur cast of his own production. The fun is in watching all the mishaps and items out of place – like wristwatches on cast members of a Moby Dick reenactment, or a pair of bright Crocs on the feet of a Roman citizen in Shakespeare’s “lost” play, “Julius & Cleopatra” – which also ends with a hearty Caucasian rap number.
The show opens with a classic British murder mystery, and sets the tone for the rest of the production right from the opening. A clearly unplugged phone rings away, forgotten lines are shouted out from the wings, and costume malfunctions ranging from moustaches to hairpieces constantly “plague” the hapless cast in each segment. If you’ve ever lived through a high school staging of “Fiddler On The Roof” as part of the largely invisible chorus, or are a member of a community theatre group yourself, you’ll crack up at this collection of faux pas and earnest bumbling. For anyone else, the comic effects just speak for themselves – funny, funny stuff…
“The Coarse Acting Show” runs at Calgary historic Pumphouse Theatre until May 15th…
Chow for now!!
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