>>PREVIEW
LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME
Runs until December 10
Vertigo Mystery Theatre
Vertigo Theatre (Tower Centre)
"Murder is always a mistake – one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner."
Oscar Wilde was a man of words, a legendary wit whose wordplay was "play" only in the sense that Yo-Yo Ma "plays" the cello. But, rapier though his wit may have been, and though he did serve time for "gross indecency," Wilde left the fine art of murder to his fictional creations.
Originally a novella included in a collection titled Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is a characteristically absurd spoof on England’s upper classes riddled with the bon mots for which Wilde is infamous. Adapted several times for the stage, the story of its titular English gentleman and his blundering attempts at murder is a comic aperitif for Veritgo Mystery Theatre’s usually-macabre fare.
Told by an unscrupulous palm reader named Mr. Podgers (Duncan Ollerenshaw) that he is destined to be a murderer, Lord Arthur Savile (Tyrell Crews) decides that he can only enter into his impending marriage to Sybil Merton (Brieanna Moench) without worry, namely by committing a murder beforehand. With the aid of his worldly butler Baines (Doug McKeag), a creation of playwright Constance Cox’s adaptation, Savile begins a blundering campaign of attempted murders against his relatives that includes a botched poisoning and the explosive expertise of a mad German anarchist (John Ullyatt).
"(Savile) goes about everything with an open and honest heart," says Crews. "Everything is operating from a good place. So you can’t necessarily play him as a dumb-dumb, but that’s just it – he’s totally oblivious to the goings on in the world."
"He’s truly innocent," adds director Mark Bellamy. "He’s been raised in the British peerage system and never really had to think much for himself."
Of course, clueless members of the upper class are not exclusive to Wilde’s London. Despite the Victorian setting of the play, which Bellamy and designer Robert Shannon have envisioned as a heightened "Victorian popup book," both Crews and Bellamy see obvious parallels between Sevile’s sheltered world and the excesses of the oil-rich nouveau riche.
"You see high school students driving around in BMW’s, or just brand new Volkswagens, just have so much money because they’re given it all," Crews observes. "Arthur’s been raised in (that kind of environment), raised in that bubble, without anything being behind that. He just floats around life like a feather caught in a breeze."
Though Sevile himself may be somewhat lightweight, the story’s cachet certainly isn’t. At least three adaptations, including Cox’s and a one-act opera by Geoffrey Bush, have shown the strength of Wilde’s absurd tale of obligation. In fact, it was because of another version entirely that Vertigo decided to produce its current version.
"The Trevor Baxter one is why I found this one," admits Bellamy. "I was in contact with his agents in London, but it wasn’t available because it had just finished touring Britain. They weren’t ready to send it off to the world yet. And so I found this one. I didn’t get a chance to read the Trevor Baxter script. They went even further into a musical. Characters would break out of a play, and say things to the audience.
"The reason I really liked this adaptation was that this was one that Oscar Wilde would himself want to see."
It was because of the play’s language, Wilde’s signature repartee and one-line epigrams, that Bellamy first approached Crews. Having seen the young actor as the malapropism-spewing Inspector Dogberry in Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, Vertigo’s artistic director was confident that the Mount Royal graduate could shoulder a role that sees Savile on stage for virtually every moment of its two-hour running time.
Language notwithstanding, there is at least one final bit of holiday appropriateness that Wilde himself would have likely found deliciously dark.
"You’ve got Christmas Carol, Peter Pan (both running at the same time). Who wants to come see some horrid dark thing," says Bellamy. "When I read the script, I thought: ‘It’s so lovely.’"
"It’s a holiday murder," he adds. "At a time when the family is getting on your nerves, come to see a play that’s all about murdering your relatives. It’s all about trying to kill off your family." |
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