“I went to see the world premier of Norm Foster’s The Gentleman Clothier, at Port Dover’s Lighthouse Festival Theatre, and I was simply blown away by the play,” said Upper Canada Playhouse artistic director, Donnie Bowes. “I was determined that our audience here would have the chance to see this show.”
The Gentleman Clothier, with Brian Young, Allan James Cooke and Sophia Fabiilli and Heather Hodgson (who recreate the roles they played in the Port Dover run), is directed by Chris McHarge, who was also the director of that premier production. This show is the last of the Playhouse summer season shows, and opens September 10 running until October 4.
“This is a wonderful story set in both eastern Canada and in London, England as well,” said Chris McHarge. “No matter what ideas he is writing about, Norm always looks at his themes through a comic lens. During rehearsals, we look at the relationships among the characters who are telling the story. As actors, and as a director, we then trust Foster to provide the laughs. And there are many, many laughs in this play. Foster is so good at his craft that his scripts are gifts to the actors.”
“Norm Foster has the natural ability to write shows people in the audience can identify with,” added Bowes. “Through humour he can address many issues. Comedy is the way he attracts people.”
As the Gentleman Clothier himself, veteran actor Brian Young (well known to Playhouse audiences) is the character around whom all the events of the play revolve. “What do I like about my character Norman?” Young said. “His precision. He has such a preciseness about his life and how he sees the world. He really longs to live in the past, at a time when he feels that he would be more comfortable. And he gets his wish. Yet the other people he meets bring him up short at times, and surprise him.”
Sophia Fabiilli, a versatile Toronto based actress, takes on the role of Sophie in the play. “She’s spunky, like a firecracker,” young and exuberant, and demands to be Norman’s assistant in the shop, whether he actually wants an assistant or not. The character of Alisha is portrayed by Heather Hodgson, who has acted throughout Canada. Alisha descends on Norman demanding the best suit money can buy for her husband, then finds that not everything is as it appears. “Alisha is wealthy and sophisticated, but she is also rather naive. She is willing to change, to adapt,” Hodgson explained.
Allan James Cooke plays the role of Patrick in the play, and is a genuine transplanted Englishman. (Director McHarge laughed that “we have our Brit trying to do a Canadian accent, and our Canadians trying to do British accents.”) Patrick is a single father, with an ailing child, in desperate need of a job when he comes in the door of Norman’s shop. “In the play my character, like all the characters, will go through changes,” said Cooke.
These four characters find themselves in a world where they must flip back and forth between the present, in Canada, and the past, a gentleman’s shop in 19th century London where Norman has always felt he more truly belongs. “We are fortunate,” said director McHarge, “that this cast has built a strong dynamic together and gelled beautifully.”
The play does involve a passage of time and is set in both the modern world and a past world that Norman, the gentleman clothier, has always dreamed of. Could the play be described as a fantasy?
“I would call The Gentleman Clothier more of a romantic comedy,” said Chris McHarge, “a romantic comedy, yes, but not really in the traditional sense. It’s more,” he added, tongue firmly in cheek, “like Downtown Abbey meets Dr. Who.”
For tickets and information for The Gentleman Clothier, running at Upper Canada Playhouse until October 4, contact the Playhouse box office at 613-543-3713.
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