>>REVIEW
TREASURE ISLAND
Alberta Theatre Projects
Runs until December 28
Martha Cohen Theatre
(Epcor Centre)
Pirates may not come decked in red satin and white fur collars, but there’s no denying that Alberta Theatre Projects’ holiday offering, Treasure Island, fits the exuberant mood of the season just the same.
Produced in association with Quest Theatre, and helmed by its artistic director, Duval Lang, ATP’s show brings Robert Louis Stevenson’s quintessential pirate adventure to the stage with all the unabashed enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning. Despite its comparatively minimalist staging (Theatre Calgary’s A Christmas Carol probably has more detail in one of its backdrops than there is in the whole of Scott Reid’s Treasure Island set), the production delivers cinematic excess with a collection of Calgary’s most engaging talents as swashbucklers, old salts and uproarious comic relief.
The show begins with the introduction of narrator Jim Hawkins (Phil Fulton), seen reading his journal in his bed as stage fog begins to pour from underneath it. Young Jim, dreaming of life on the seas, lives vicariously through his books until a genuine pirate, Billy Bones (Doug McKeag), stumbles into the family pub and begins to order rum. But when a knock on the door reveals the grisly, one-armed Black Dog (Ryan Luhning), seeking the map to the late Capt. Flint’s buried treasure, the stage is set for swordplay, a sea voyage and a visit to a desert island.
If this Treasure Island suffers from any weakness, it’s simply that Fulton’s adequate Jim Hawkins doesn’t stand a chance against the well-drawn characters that surround him. The virtuous young hero has the scene stolen from him every time Christopher Hunt’s Squire Trelawney minces across the stage to the rising peals of giggling from the audience, or when Andy Curtis’s Ben Gunn flails his limbs as he begs for cheese. And then there’s Paul Cowling’s one-legged Long John Silver. In a striking tableau at the end of Act 1, when Silver screams that Hawkins must be found, audiences will want to relish his moment of villainous posing. There’s nothing like a menacing peg leg and some well-placed lighting (designed by Brian Pincott) to conjure up the thrill of bloodthirsty piracy.
In the second act, set on the island of the title, the actors have a tall order to fill, evoking the locale with just a protruding wooden stage, several well-placed plants and, in one case, a series of collapsing wooden racks for a fortified compound. But thanks to Lang’s artful staging and his cast’s infectious energy, the details of Treasure Island’s world and its characters are never lost in the shifting of Reid’s carefully chosen props.
Special attention is also due to Laryssa Yanchak’s excellent fight direction. She has these pirates slashing, leaping through rope ladders and even launching a few well-aimed sandbags, all the while costumed in a fantastical wardrobe designed by Deneen McArthur. Blind Pew (Tyrell Crews), for one, owes the effect of his ominous entry partly to Crews’s powerful, throaty delivery, but also to McArthur’s eye-obscuring robe.
At times ridiculous, but always within the bounds of its own imaginary world, ATP’s Treasure Island is a masterful combination of action and comedy featuring a cast that treats playwright Michael O’Brien’s adaptation with the guiltless extravagance it deserves. Hunt’s dandy in a powdered wig may not be Santa Claus and his ship full of pirates certainly aren’t reindeer, but a family audience may be too riveted to notice the difference. |
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