The Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual
celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.
This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre
and the Elmira Theatre Company.
and the Elmira Theatre Company.
The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.
ABSOLUTELY...FRED
by Buddy Brennan
Directed by Buddy Brennan
Presented by Cambridge Community Players
The company from Cambridge Community Players opened the Festival with an amusing production of a comedic script that's a bit of a throwback to earlier times.
Buddy Brennan's script for Absolutely...Fred stands in a direct line of descent from the classic French farces of Georges Feydeau by way of the 1960 farce, Boeing-Boeing.
The first scene begins by seeming like a direct rip-off or adaptation of Boeing-Boeing but Brennan quickly finds his own independent direction to take his story line and characters. The script shows a nice flair for comic writing, demonstrated in Henry's numerous hypochondriac rants and in the scene where Lydia and Farrah meet for breakfast. On the downside, the character development is uneven, with only two of the five characters being given much depth or dimension to their lives.
Before the show began, the theatre was filled with upbeat, lively, light-hearted music which actually had several audience members bopping in the aisles as they made their way to their seats. Definitely set the tone before the show!
The realistic set presented interesting contrasts, with neutral walls in light grey offset by two paintings, two brick walls, window curtains, and coffee maker, all in glaring red (with the paintings incorporating an equally garish green in addition). This overplus of red gave a cartoonish effect to the set as a whole, an effect highlighted by the surreal sight of tops of skyscrapers out the window of Fred's apartment when the apartment itself appeared (thanks to the brickwork) like a walk-up.
The paintings appeared to many of the audience like stylized drinking glasses but, on closer examination, proved to be stylized figures of women. Both views of this Rorschach test fitted equally well into the lifestyle of the committed drinker and womanizer, Fred.
In the title role of Fred, Kevin Burnett presented an amusing take on the bachelor rake, juggling two girlfriends while deciding which one he wants to marry. In truth, Burnett left me with the feeling that Fred would never take that final step because he would always want to spring into action every time a new woman walked into his view. Even at his biggest moments of fear and indecision, his diction remained impeccably clear. His pat speech about what he wants in a woman and his equally pat speech of denial were comic highlights.
Deb Huggins did fine work with the role of Lydia, one of Fred's two girlfriends. Vocally, she incorporated a nice touch of irony into almost every line, sometimes just a soupçon, sometimes whole heaping, dripping tablespoonfuls. Her best moment came in the scene where she dropped Fred, with her indulgent laughter and mocking face pats signalling that he had met his match in the kiss-and-run department.
Sandra Stewart, as airline pilot Farrah, appears at first as almost a carbon copy of Lydia (due to the script), but as the show went on Stewart found her own touching grace notes and intonations that set her apart as a different sort of person altogether. Her final scene with Henry felt truthful and real.
The tone set in the breakfast scene between Stewart and Huggins made me feel that the two women had cottoned on to Fred's game and were already laughing at him.
As Fred's dorky friend, Henry, Steven Whetstone commanded the widest range of facial expressions and vocal tones employed by any of the company. Part of the fun of his never-ending health rants was the diversity of face and voice which he employed in presenting them. His chortling glee as he sets up the event which he imagines will be Fred's final downfall set me chuckling, and his drunk scene with Farrah was both funny and believable. So, too, were his shenanigans with the whisky bottles.
Indeed, Fred might be the title character but by the last minutes of the show I was rooting for Henry to end up with Farrah, partly thanks to the script but also definitely due to Whetstone's growth and development within the character.
The fifth character, Henry's sister Maggie, was played by Jessica O'Connor with an entirely believable mixture of sophistication and naivete in her attitudes towards different aspects of her life. Her performance built nicely up to her finest moment, her final reappearance just moments before the curtain.
Apart from a few moments of slackness in Act 1, Brennan paced the show neatly and built up to the energy of the final scenes. I felt that the whole climactic sequence played out among Fred, Henry, and Farrah could and should have developed even more energy -- some of it frantic, with other moments of tension in stillness.
There were, in retrospect, a number of spots throughout the play where a more farcical, frenetic approach could have been taken without fracturing the through line of the story. It would do no harm to the show for the company occasionally to remember John Mortimer's classic dictum: "Farce is tragedy, played at 130 revolutions per minute."
Absolutely...Fred presented the audience with an entertaining and amusing evening of theatre, and got the Festival off to a flying start.
Buddy Brennan's script for Absolutely...Fred stands in a direct line of descent from the classic French farces of Georges Feydeau by way of the 1960 farce, Boeing-Boeing.
The first scene begins by seeming like a direct rip-off or adaptation of Boeing-Boeing but Brennan quickly finds his own independent direction to take his story line and characters. The script shows a nice flair for comic writing, demonstrated in Henry's numerous hypochondriac rants and in the scene where Lydia and Farrah meet for breakfast. On the downside, the character development is uneven, with only two of the five characters being given much depth or dimension to their lives.
Before the show began, the theatre was filled with upbeat, lively, light-hearted music which actually had several audience members bopping in the aisles as they made their way to their seats. Definitely set the tone before the show!
The realistic set presented interesting contrasts, with neutral walls in light grey offset by two paintings, two brick walls, window curtains, and coffee maker, all in glaring red (with the paintings incorporating an equally garish green in addition). This overplus of red gave a cartoonish effect to the set as a whole, an effect highlighted by the surreal sight of tops of skyscrapers out the window of Fred's apartment when the apartment itself appeared (thanks to the brickwork) like a walk-up.
The paintings appeared to many of the audience like stylized drinking glasses but, on closer examination, proved to be stylized figures of women. Both views of this Rorschach test fitted equally well into the lifestyle of the committed drinker and womanizer, Fred.
In the title role of Fred, Kevin Burnett presented an amusing take on the bachelor rake, juggling two girlfriends while deciding which one he wants to marry. In truth, Burnett left me with the feeling that Fred would never take that final step because he would always want to spring into action every time a new woman walked into his view. Even at his biggest moments of fear and indecision, his diction remained impeccably clear. His pat speech about what he wants in a woman and his equally pat speech of denial were comic highlights.
Deb Huggins did fine work with the role of Lydia, one of Fred's two girlfriends. Vocally, she incorporated a nice touch of irony into almost every line, sometimes just a soupçon, sometimes whole heaping, dripping tablespoonfuls. Her best moment came in the scene where she dropped Fred, with her indulgent laughter and mocking face pats signalling that he had met his match in the kiss-and-run department.
Sandra Stewart, as airline pilot Farrah, appears at first as almost a carbon copy of Lydia (due to the script), but as the show went on Stewart found her own touching grace notes and intonations that set her apart as a different sort of person altogether. Her final scene with Henry felt truthful and real.
The tone set in the breakfast scene between Stewart and Huggins made me feel that the two women had cottoned on to Fred's game and were already laughing at him.
As Fred's dorky friend, Henry, Steven Whetstone commanded the widest range of facial expressions and vocal tones employed by any of the company. Part of the fun of his never-ending health rants was the diversity of face and voice which he employed in presenting them. His chortling glee as he sets up the event which he imagines will be Fred's final downfall set me chuckling, and his drunk scene with Farrah was both funny and believable. So, too, were his shenanigans with the whisky bottles.
Indeed, Fred might be the title character but by the last minutes of the show I was rooting for Henry to end up with Farrah, partly thanks to the script but also definitely due to Whetstone's growth and development within the character.
The fifth character, Henry's sister Maggie, was played by Jessica O'Connor with an entirely believable mixture of sophistication and naivete in her attitudes towards different aspects of her life. Her performance built nicely up to her finest moment, her final reappearance just moments before the curtain.
Apart from a few moments of slackness in Act 1, Brennan paced the show neatly and built up to the energy of the final scenes. I felt that the whole climactic sequence played out among Fred, Henry, and Farrah could and should have developed even more energy -- some of it frantic, with other moments of tension in stillness.
There were, in retrospect, a number of spots throughout the play where a more farcical, frenetic approach could have been taken without fracturing the through line of the story. It would do no harm to the show for the company occasionally to remember John Mortimer's classic dictum: "Farce is tragedy, played at 130 revolutions per minute."
Absolutely...Fred presented the audience with an entertaining and amusing evening of theatre, and got the Festival off to a flying start.
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