Review
THE BOY’S OWN JEDI HANDBOOK
Alberta Theatre Projects
Starring Christian Goutsis, C. Adam Leigh, Esther Purves-Smith and Shari Wattling
Written by Stephen Massicotte
Directed by Johanne Deleeuw
Runs until December 24
Martha Cohen Theatre (Epcor Centre)
A cynic would say that if you want a surefire audience hit, all you need to do is write a play that celebrates an enormously popular movie serial and bathe it in sunny childhood nostalgia.
Still, The Boy’s Own Jedi Handbook, Stephen Massicotte’s charming ode to kids and Star Wars, defies that cynicism. In part because the play had such honest, unambitious beginnings – as an autobiographical actor’s exercise written when the playwright was studying acting at the University of Calgary – and in part because Massicotte uses the Star Wars films so deftly and humorously as a mirror to his generation’s coming of age.
Of course, you don’t have to be a thirtysomething Star Wars geek to appreciate this play – although it always helps. I, too, saw Star Wars on the big screen when it opened in 1977, but it didn’t rock my world – that year it was Woody Allen’s Annie Hall that I went back to see over and over again – yet I still get a big kick out of Massicotte’s little comedy. I’m especially fond of its second part, The Girls Strike Back, when Massicotte’s geeky boys enter junior high and begin to undergo puberty – as always, a lot slower than their female classmates – with the consequent tug between their childhood enthusiasms and the newfound delights of the opposite sex.
That second half is also the stronger part of Alberta Theatre Projects’ new production, thanks to the sparkling performances of Esther Purves-Smith and Shari Wattling, who seem to effortlessly embody young teenage girls. They’re a perfect match to the eternally boyish leads, Christian Goutsis and C. Adam Leigh, who have done the show before and clearly own their parts as The Kid and his best buddy James.
Indeed, Leigh and sound designer Ian M. Kelly have been involved with the play from its very first production and they help preserve its original fringe-show spirit, as does director Johanne Deeleuw, who staged its last incarnation as the Jedi Trilogy a season ago. The big differences in this version are ATP’s glossy production values, yet Deleeuw and her designers still keep it simple and bold.
Narda McCarroll provides a single set that evokes sandy, two-sun Tatooine (Luke Skywalker’s home planet, to you non-Star Wars types) as well as representing everything from a movie theatre to a backyard, while Brian Pincott washes it in candy-coloured lighting. Kelly’s sound design once again cheerfully pilfers the movies’ John Williams scores, as well as snatches of dialogue and even the 20th Century Fox fanfare, while McCarroll’s amusing costumes look like they were picked up on a time-machine trip back to a 1970s K-Mart. (Ah, yes – whatever happened to leg warmers?)
This is ATP’s big family show this holiday season, which means a lot of kids will no doubt be brought to see it. Older ones will likely enjoy its playful exuberance. But younger ones may find it too wordy and wish they were the ones up there, dueling with cardboard-tube light-sabres or building an X-wing fighter out of hockey sticks. And hey, who can blame them? |
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