The Motel Series goes sci-fi and shows us a world of comedy and painful honesty
Zany. Off-the-wall. All-out silly. That’s how I describe the current production in Downstage’s Motel Series: Honesty, directed by Anton de Groot. The play is produced by Two Sheds Theatre Troupe, a new company in Calgary dedicated to producing comedy.
Written by Calgary playwright Neil Fleming, Honesty portrays a futuristic world, set in 2367, Canada’s quincentennial. It’s a world in which everyone is conditioned to tell the truth and nobody thinks to lie. It’s a world where the street lingo of the day includes phrases like “Good Gretzky!” and “Lunar!” It’s a world in which, rather than using telephones and e-mail, people mentally “link” with each other. It’s a world where chocolate consumption is illegal, and the Ministry of Obsolete Technologies (MOOT) is trying to track down and arrest the “chocolate pusher,” known as the Easter Bunny.
That quest to uncover the identity of the Easter Bunny, who is supplying desperate chocolate addicts with their fix, forms the central plot of the play.
Honesty opens with the chief chocolate enforcement officer, Fido Teriyaki (Aaron Edelstein), training new recruit Spot Fettuccini (Col Cseke) in his duties as a chocolate enforcer and employee of MOOT.
Fido believes his wife, Effie Souvlaki (Nicola Elson), might actually be the Easter Bunny, so he invites Spot and his wife, chocolate addict Miko Quesadilla (Jessica Nottel), to dinner. The plan is for a reluctant Spot to seduce Effie and, in the process, find out if she’s really the culprit.
To assist him in this assignment, Spot takes some pills, which have a distinctly Viagra–like side-effect, that allow people to lie without being detected.
All the characters dive fully into the silliness of the play and their characters. The humour is borne of the actors’ full commitment to the world in which they live. Nottel is particularly ridiculous, with her chocolate-addicted tongue hanging out of her mouth, pursuing a bowl of chocolate chip cookies like a dog in heat.
Despite the committed performances, however, I find the comedy slow to pick up. The first half of the play is heavy on cheesy jokes that don’t elicit much laughter.
The laughs really start when the “naughty” parts of the production get going, and the earlier wordiness of the play is replaced with non-stop physical comedy.
It doesn’t get much better than Spot trying, desperately, to hide the tree that has suddenly sprung up from between his legs, or Spot and Fido running around, their massive protrusions straining their pants — and stealing the show — with two hungry, and horny, women in hot pursuit.
The set is imaginative as well. It features a large, square device that looks like some futuristic computer control panel. It includes TV screens continuously playing historic footage, dials, buttons, a vacuum cleaner, a fax machine and other paraphernalia spilling out. It represents the “archive,” which MOOT guards, a collection of knowledge about historic humankind, including such dangerous information as a chocolate-chip cookie recipe.
The sound design is also delightful with its happy, bouncy, Disney–like musical interludes suggestive of spring blossoms, sunshine, and the Easter Bunny.
Honesty is Two Sheds Theatre Troupe’s first production. Playwright Fleming is the self-described “artistic overlord” of the company, which he started to inject some comedic colour in Calgary’s theatre scene — a genre often under-represented in the theatre community. Furthermore, the company offers opportunities for emerging artists.
Honesty certainly marks a good start to Two Sheds’ existence on Calgary’s stages. Save for the beginning, which drags, the play moves quickly and smoothly with a lot of laughs along with the way.
The bottom line is, if your funny bone needs a tickle, and you like silly, unsophisticated humour, then Honesty will do it for you. If, however, you like your comedy martini-style, then skip this one.
Post the first comment: (Login or Register)