LORNE ELLIOTT'S UPSIDE OF THE DOWNSIDE

JACK WOULD HAVE ENJOYED THIS SHOW. WE DID.


Writer, composer, actor, musician Lorne Elliott has been meandering all over Canada and gathering comic gems about us for nearly 30 years. His performance on the historic stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House Tuesday 23 August 2011 happened one day after the death of a former schoolmate of his in Hudson, Quebec.

Like many, if not all, of the audience at the Opera House that evening, and millions across Canada, I was mourning the rapid decline and sudden passing of Jack Layton, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and an inspiration within and beyond his political affiliation with the NDP. It seemed somehow quite appropriate to carry on with life as usual, and attend a show that I am sure Jack would have enjoyed.

In fact, as we learned with the last sentence from the stage, that whole evening was dedicated to the late Mr. Layton. “This one’s for you,  Jack!” Subtly, Lorne Elliott, a consummate master of searching and gentlemanly humour, had been working up to that quiet ending all evening as he tickled us into gales of laughter.

An evening with this quintessential Canadian comedian is a whirlwind journey “Madly Off in All Directions”, like his former Saturday afternoon broadcasts on CBC Radio. Eager to catch his current show on stage, I had no idea how much more fun it would be to see that rubbery face in action, and the trademark shocked hairdo and baggy trousers.

In fact I just barely caught this live show. Try to sneak inconspicuously into our venerable Opera House from its updated elevator entrance, just below stage right, in a colourful Ghanian print outfit.

Up on stage Lorne was mercilessly wrangling a microphone on a heavy stand, and regaling an already appreciative house with wildly graphic self-deprecations on a home renovation disaster. Next thing we knew it, we were sharing an off-shore breeze off Prince Edward Island in a home-crafted boat that was the epitome of ineptitude.

A typical effect of a stage performance by Lorne Elliott seems to be a certain infectiousness. We have just seen an example of this, as I got embroiled in excessive vocabularizations, as characterized by Lorne’s CBC icon, Rex Murphy.

Thorough enjoyment of an Elliott gig would imply that the audience is familiar with the CBC and its personalities. His contagious flippancy rubs off on his audiences, who come out of his performances feeling funny and quipping merrily. Warmed up by successively more hilarious misadventures in home renovation, landscaping and boat-building, we easily swallowed passing comments like, “Canadian - it’s a wonder we manage to breathe.”

Part of the Elliott mandate is to add the audience’s home town to his itinerary and litany. He kept us neatly skewered in Gravenhurst, and seemed to know intuitively that we are inclined to be “weird”. Funny he should notice that. Other reviewers have noticed his noticing, and reported him as an astute observer of Canadian wildlife, including the humans and super-humans like David Suzuki.

Undoubtedly noting a predominance of grey heads among us, Lorne made sure anyone the least bit hard of hearing was able to capture the rich subtleties of moose, a language he speaks fluently in his alter ego of Morris, the Moose. The guy next to me was joining quite effectively in the chorus of that song.

I idly wonder if Lorne Elliott happened to know that here in Gravenhurst we don’t need to go into the woods, with or without warning bells, but may casually meet a bear strolling around the Opera House or up a tree by the Salvation Army church. At any rate, his comments tend to hit close to home.

In the artist’s own words:  “The one-man show I'm performing now is called "THE UPSIDE OF THE DOWNTURN". ... The way the One-man show works is by not staying in one place too long. It's harder to hit a moving target.”

Here is a sample of Lorne Elliott in action, using some of the ideas that we heard in Gravenhurst. One of two clips from a show at Stephensville, Newfoundland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3EcO8dSJQY&feature=related

His own website is fun to browse and most informative.
http://www.lorne-elliott.com

Off and on during the writing of this review I was watching CBC television’s coverage of Jack Layton’s lying in state at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, and interviews with his close friends and associates. Jian Ghomeshi, a personal friend of Jack and his family, made a shiver go down my spine as he reported NDP Caucus Members vowing “not to go madly off in all directions” but to work together toward their late leader’s visions and goals for Canada.

I didn’t happen to vote NDP in the recent election, and I’m not a member of any party, but I am so sad to see a great leader leave us just after bringing Quebec into the federal fold and taking his place as the first NDP leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. This one is for you, Jack, for Olivia and your family, and for all of us who have appreciated your decency, responsibility, music and fun in politics and in our lives.

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

How to Review the Cottage Country Comedy Festival Without being a Spoiler

At last! The Cottage Country Comedy Festival made it to the Gravenhurst Opera House in 2011 on the evening of 23 June for the Gala Opening of its fourth summer season. In the deeply Muskokan atmosphere of a seemingly simple set, the comedians are encouraged to get their words flowing, with the well-timed silences and human and non-human sounds that are all part of the process. The CBC was filming and recording, and so picked up the boisterous enthusiasm of an audience more than ready for an evening that was clearly beyond their high expectations.

As Bracebridge native Tyler Morrison, Creative Director, and multi-award winner, writes on the CCCF website, the festival brings “comedians together from all over the world for a great weekend filled with laughs and a true Muskokan experience”. The intention here is, “to build shows with a dynamic all killer no filler appeal...  the energy is very tangible, something that the audience can feel through the performances.”

Last night that energy bounced back and forth between audience and comedians as I have rarely seen happen at the Gravenhurst Opera House since Dave Broadfoot's First Final Tour in 2001. When we delighted in Dave, we were witnessing the mature talent of a Canadian icon, ever fresh and youthful.

On 23 June 2011, we heard a performer shout how thrilled he was to crown his career by making it to the stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House. Part of the laugh there included our knowledge that, like all his buddies on stage that evening, he has much to look forward to. And so have we. This is a young show, which perhaps partly explains the thread of pre-occupation with aging.

Unknown to the team, near the back of the hall was an 80-year-old reviewer-blogger who had decided to leave her notebook at home and just enjoy the show. The Cottage Country Comedy Festival with comic after comic prancing onto the stage did not seem an occasion to crouch in the dark making frantic notes in invisible writing.

The CCCF rampage continues at The Rosseau on 24 June and Port Carling Community Centre on 25 June. Bracebridge’s Griffin Pub on 12 August and the Rene M. Caisse Theatre on 13 August, as can be seen and heard on the CCCF website http://www.cottagecomedy.com/

They are updating it as I type. It’s a very generous, entertaining and informative site, with video samplings, also letting us glimpse part of the set, to whet appetites.

Click to return to the Gravenhurst Opera House website.

http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

HAY FEVER 2001

Since the Staw Hat Players' 1949 production of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" no other performance has compared with it for me - until the summer of 2001, when former members of the troupe returned to the Gravenhurst Opera House with the same play. For me, the acid test of any performance of "Hay Fever" is the final few second of Act One. It's all about tea cups.

Here is my review of the 2001 show, ably edited by the late Doug Specht, and published in "The Muskoka Times". Click once to reveal the link that will take you to a scanned copy from the online edition :
http://tinyurl.com/297htp3
Just in case that doesn't work, here is my re-typed copy:

THEY DID “THE TEACUP THING”, BLESS THEM

The opening of the 2001 Straw Hat Festival on Tuesday was a special event in the life of the 100-year-old Gravenhurst Opera House. Former Straw Hat Player Ted Follows has returned, along with seven other members of his own theatrically gifted family, plus Robin Craig, in a freshly reminiscent revival of Noel Coward’s 1924 comedy, “Hay Fever”.

Fifty-two years after performing the part of the very juvenile Simon Bliss on our stage, Ted Follows plays the novel-writing Bliss family patriarch, David.

Lawrence Follows takes his father’s earlier role of Simon Bliss.

The project originated with Lawrence’s inspiration to “pay tribute to the Straw Hat Players, Canada’s very first professional summer theatre”. Despite their busy schedules in film, on stage and at home, the Follows family pronounced themselves thrilled to assemble for this historic even, co-produced by Lawrence follows and Robert Missen.

An appreciative and elegant audience established the tone of the evening the moment the curtains parted, by warmly applauding the set, with opening actors Samantha and Lawrence Follows fetchingly draped about it. Stage right: French doors open to the unseen garden with a punt moored on the river. Upstage right: the front door, whose translucent glass allows us to see the silhouette of each arrival. Ivy trails above both doorways, with effects of light and shadow on the leaves.

The sizeable hall of the Bliss’s house in Cookham breathes lived-in, pastel charm. A sturdy stairway with halfway landing leads upstage centre to the novelist’s study, and an unspecified number of bedrooms. “The Japanese Room” -- full of offstage character, is reserved for guests of honour, of whom, this June weekend, there are to be four.

When I first saw the Straw Hat Players do “Hay Fever” here in 1949, I didn’t particularly notice the plot -- having too much fun, I guess. I suspect it was the playwright’s intention to conceal with apparent frothiness how well-woven is the story line.

The plot is simple, neatly squared off. Four members of the Bliss family, bored by country life, invite four guests for a quiet weekend in the country, the complication being that nobody bothered to inform anyone else about the chosen guest until it was too late.

Once the theme is established, the play seems to romp along, heedless of convention. Actually, the pace does vary, giving actors and audience a respite from time to time, and preparing them for the next escalation.

Quiet moments alternate with bright, busy or downright noisy scenes, depending how many characters are present. The dialogue varies from softly intimate, briskly witty, or becomes a simultaneous family quatralogue,  all in full cry.

The guests arrive during the first act  - the dashing American in his automobile, the “femme fatale” by the only local taxi from the train station. After a suitable interval, the diplomat and shy young lady are deposited at the Bliss home by the same taxi. They are respectively welcomed, ignored or insulted by Bliss family members. Shortly before the first act curtain, all assemble around the tea tray except Clara, the servant, who prepared it, brought it in and plunked it down  without ceremony.

For the, the acid test for any performance of “Hay Fever” comes just before the curtain falls on Act One, as the cast do, or do not, lift their cups in unison. If they don’t, I feel something vital is missing. “The teacup thing” is all I remember of the Straw Hat Players’ 1949 production. The synchronization of teacups here is not only pure comedy; it can also mean resignation, rebellion  and a host of other feelings boiling beneath the surface, as four desperate hosts and four disparate guests face a weekend together.

The second act opens with muted lighting on a tableau of everyone dressed for dinner, frozen in place as in a snapshot. When the stage lighting comes on full, animation kicks in. Dinner is over, apparently to everyone’s relief, but the drinks go on.

The family is determined all shall join in their favourite guessing game, one that happens to require histrionic ability natural to a Bliss, but excruciatingly painful to the guests. After muddling through this ordeal, people scatter, escaping in surprising couples to engage in mild flirtations. Judith Bliss, mother and retired actress, escalates her own and everyone else’s romantic gestures -- offstage and  on -- into high drama.

Scenes from her meatiest roles in past plays somehow work their way into the dialogue, to confuse everybody but her own family, “acting up to Mother” as usual.

The third and final act shows the guests sneaking down  one by one the following morning to the tune of rattling rain and thunder, to snatch a bite of toast or scrambled egg and a gulp of coffee. Agreeing that the family is quite mad, they feverishly plot a group getaway, than steal upstairs to pack.

The family replaces them at the deserted breakfast table. Soon absorbed in  vigorous criticism of the patriarch’s latest chapter, they do not notice the four guests filtering down the stairs and out the door, until it slams.

Each character is a perfect foil for all the others, and has its own section of the human psyche to prowl or march around in. Robin Craig as Clara, the theatrical dresser turned maid, steals the scene every time she stalks on stage, and nobody minds a bit. Her character is supposed to steal the scene anyway, as are all the dramatic personae in this cleverly crafted play.

Clara’s brash voice and hearty accent contrast with the flutelike, often querulous, tones of the Bliss children, who keep petulantly  ringing for her. Her uncompromising grey print house-dress and beige cardigan or pinny set off the butterfly  colours of the fashionable family and guests. And when she sings and dances “Tea for Two” as she clears the table, she brings down the house.

Ted Follows’s lovely former wife Dawn Greenhalgh is superb as Judith Bliss, retired actress and mother. Her timing is particularly effective on a stage where everyone masters that art. When she sings the first verse of “J’attendrai”, you can hear a pin drop. Hers is a pliable, true alto voice capable of doing justice to the piece made famous by Edith Piaff and Charles Trenet. This is, however, no mere imitation. Dawn Greenhalgh’s interpretation comes with her own depth of pathos and wry smile.

Megan Follows slinks gracefully from charming pose to alluring pose as the sophisticated Myra Arundel, she of the subtly seductive cigarette-holder. Her pose of cool detachment beaks down when her host calls her bluff, and the wary woman behind the siren’s mask reveals herself momentarily.

Former child actress and current screen-writer Edwina Follows if Jackie Coryton, bashfully uncertain why David Bliss invited her in the first place. We see her character struggling to deal in a ladylike manner with rejection, rudeness, demands to do a solo dance “after the manner  of the word” and, finally, having to face dragons all night. We feel for this girl pitch-forked into what, for a sensitive, shrinking violet, must be at worst a den of demons and at best a social  ordeal. There is hope for her stiff upper lip to relax a little, as she tries to cure another visitor of the hiccups.

Lawrence Follows bounds boyishly about as Simon Bliss, while son-in-law Sean O’Bryan makes a divinely sculptured, very American, admirer of Judith  Bliss. Stuart Hughes is the stiff-backed British diplomat Richard Greatham who says just the right things in the midst of unabashed bluntness.

The costuming flows with the setting and the play -- ah, those Twenties fashions, for both men and women. Garden hats, fedoras and cloches off to co-ordinators Hilary Corbett and Judy Cooper-Sealy for the clothes, wigs and hair ornaments.

Thank you, Director Follows, for that elegant lifting of teacups, in near perfect unison, that took me back to your 1949 “Hay Fever” with Araby Lockart, Charmion King, Kate Reid and Donald and Murray Davcs. It made your family triumph of 2001 all the more delightful.

(Posted in The Muskoka Times July 6, 2001)


And now, back to the official Gravenhurst Opera House link:


http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/