The Argyle Sweater Induced Me to Laugh So Hard I Cried
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Is laughter the best medicine?
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| Ryan Beil at the Stanley, January 28 2015 |
My wife Rosemary and I attended the opening performance of
Richard Bean (story) and music and songs by Grant Olding, One Man, Two Guvnors
last night. It was an Arts Club Theatre production directed by David Mackay at
the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage.
Attempting to explain the plot of this play (which is not
quite a musical) would be as difficult as defining that other terrific play
Bullet Catch at the Granville Island Review Stage.
I must here confess that I made lots of money in the 90s
flying all over for Reader’s Digest. As a young boy my grandmother gave me a
Spanish edition subscription to Selecciones del Reader’s Digest.
So with my special inside connection to the magazine I can
assert that in One Man, Two Guvnors, that indeed laughter is the best medicine.
Rosemary and I laughed all night as did the audience.
I will after making some subjective assertions about the
play (I am not a theatre critic nor would I ever want to be one) I will then
explain the curious facts behind Andrew McNee’s (Francis) Argyle Sweater and
tie (socks, too?) and Cailin Stadnyk’s skirt and sweater.
First to the very bad. As far as I could tell this play would have annoyed and dismayed anybody expecting an accordion player or tap dancing. I was not in the least dismayed or annoyed.
While I have seen many musicals at the Arts Club (and have
come to almost appreciate them) as a Latin American I have never understood
when people are talking suddenly start thinking.
In Vancouver now by Arts Club Theatre standards, singers must know how to dance, dancers must know how to sing, actors must know how to dance and sing. While I have heard actors play musical saws in the Penelopiad I had never seen an actor (Martin Happer as Stanley Stubbers) play an array of bicycle horns.
In Vancouver now by Arts Club Theatre standards, singers must know how to dance, dancers must know how to sing, actors must know how to dance and sing. While I have heard actors play musical saws in the Penelopiad I had never seen an actor (Martin Happer as Stanley Stubbers) play an array of bicycle horns.
The Very Good
The bicycle horns as played by Martin Happer were really good. I am glad all those actors can sing, dance and play instruments. I am glad all those musicians can act and dance.
This play is strictly speaking not a musical. There are
musical numbers by a most competent ensemble and by just about every other
member of the cast, but when they sing they sing and when they talk they
talk. They never, thankfully, ever merge
into a full-fledged musical. That is
very good!The bicycle horns as played by Martin Happer were really good. I am glad all those actors can sing, dance and play instruments. I am glad all those musicians can act and dance.
Ryan Beil (Allan Dangle) is funny even if he recited the
grocery list from Walter M. Miller Jr’s A Canticle for Leibovitz.
While I am not partial in the least to accordion players
Spencer Schoening’s washboard playing was unusually good and with his glasses
he reminded me of what Buddy Holly might have looked at when young. If I
weren’t 72 and could relive a mid-life crisis I would leave Rosemary, buy a red
Miata and propose to the young man.
It is amazing to see a wonderfully talented young actor,
Anton Lipovetsky, listed in the program as Musical Director also kill us with
his electric guitar. If I ever get married in another life I would first take
my fiancée to a restaurant where Lipovetsky would be the maître d'.
Martin Happer who plays the Englishman of that certain upper
class, Stanley Stubbers is my idea of the ideal cricket player.
Celine Stubel as the sometimes-for-a-while-man (and almost an identical twin to a dead man) Rachel Crabbe would perhaps make me dump Spencer Schoening, keep the red Miata, leave my wife and go for her in her fedora off for a picnic with her cute ladybug lunchbox.
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| Celine Stubel |
Celine Stubel as the sometimes-for-a-while-man (and almost an identical twin to a dead man) Rachel Crabbe would perhaps make me dump Spencer Schoening, keep the red Miata, leave my wife and go for her in her fedora off for a picnic with her cute ladybug lunchbox.
Most might not know that the word and brand name Viagra is a
combination of the words vigorous and Niagara Falls. Watching Cailin Stadnyk
(that gold lame dress! congrats Costume Designer Nancy Bryant for that!) and in that sweater (a tad too small?) made my heart stir. If I
saw this play, every day for its entire run I, too would not need a hat peg like Andrew
McNee and I would save on pharmaceuticals.
Amir Ofek’s set design moved here and there to my delight
and surprise. He even managed to whisk away drummer Spencer Schoening without a
gong in sight.
Robert Sandergard’s lighting always revealed to me the
details I was interested in seeing. There were many of those.
Andrew Cownden as the almost-dead (but not quite) Alfie and
wonderful harmonica player induced ample use of my diaphragm. He is most
funny.
If Lauren Bowler (Pauline Clench) were to show up at my door
in that girl guide uniform of her and those glasses I would buy all the
cookies, dump, my wife, dump Spencer Schoening, dump Celine Stubel, keep the
Red Miata and run away with her. In what could be a sort of not to PC comment
here, the former Globe Arts Critic Christopher Dafoe used to tell me that he
had the desire to have a date with Evelyn Hart and then feed her hamburgers. My
date with Bowler would be to read her War
and Peace.
But the best part of this show is Andrew McNee. I am sure
he must have some sort of real eating disorder. I watched him drink and eat.
The Ancient Romans knew how to deal with this sort of problem. I would not want
to know what the dry cleaning bill will be for the jacket he wears to which
McNee smears his full-of-food hands. He would make a brilliant paring with the
droll humour of Ryan Beil.
The most amazing discovery for me is how closely One Man,
Two Guvnors follows the plot of Venetian playwright Claudio Goldoni’s play Il
servitore di due padroni which he wrote in 1743. Perhaps the only changes are
the presence for all those reasons why one would not want to immigrate to
Australia. We might pause here to mention that we are lucky that Australian
Peter Cathie White, Executive Director of the Arts Club Theatre Company did immigrate
to our parts.
I discovered this amazing information from my useful Wikipedia.
We are not guaranteed that it is correct but here it is:
Goldoni originally
wrote the play at the request of actor Antonio Sacco, one of the great
Truffaldinos in history. His earliest drafts had large sections that were
reserved for improvisation, but he revised it in 1753 in the version that
exists today.
Some of you like me might not know that Truffaldino is
Italian for Harlequin.
So here goes my assertion (the last word would only come
from Costume Designer Nancy Bryant) that Andrew McNee’s Argyle tie and sweater
(socks?) and Cailin Stadnyk’s tight skirt with more demure Argyle decoration
(also a sweater) are a homage to that original harlequin, Antonio Sacco.  |
| Christopher Gaze, Bill Millerd, Stanley Theatre January 28 2015 |
For a while now I have discerned a similarity in how both Christopher Gaze and Ryan Beil deliver and talk. Beil is more nasal and yet when Gaze projects that Englishness of his and raises his nose up the sound reminds me of Beil's. I asked them individually last night. Gaze of course told me that he has had a long relationship with Beil. Gaze's children went to school with Beil and Beil did a few seasons at bard. I asked Gaze if he could imitate Beil. He said he could. When I asked he demurred.
Beil told me that inspiration for his actor-acting-as-an-actor role (Allan Dangle) in One Man, Two Guvnors he was inspired by Gaze's delivery in Bard on the Beach in order to project. I am sure that Beil declaming Shakespeare's Henry the V St. Crispin Day lines (so beautifully done of the cuff by Crhistopher Gaze even in a café as I have heard him deliver) would make me roar in laughter proving yet again the wisdom of Reader's Digest.
