MORRISBURG – The worlds created in Norm Foster plays are never black and white. They are always in Technicolour. Foster brings his audiences colourful, fascinating and endlessly entertaining characters: he offers them clever, insightful dialogue, wrapped in comedy. ‘Bedtime Stories,’ now running at Upper Canada Playhouse, is a Foster delight.
Set in six different bedrooms, this show revolves around 15 individuals, who take the audience into their lives at what may be turning points for them all. And what really amazed the opening night crowd was that all 15 characters are portrayed by five actors, outstanding actors who build completely separate personas in every scene. Each of their characters is unique, engaging and often hilarious, yet still a genuine ‘person.’ We get to know each of them. We care about each of them. And in Norm Foster’s ‘Bedtime Stories’, we will eventually see how all these people are actually connected to each other – if, perhaps, in the most unusual of ways.
The couple – maybe just a touch over middle age! – in their sensible dressing gowns and proper slippers, with lumbago and heel cream part of their world, are not quite what Eddie Nighthawk, radio jockey, was expecting for his daring, on air “lovemaking” show. How’s a man supposed to advance his career and finally break away from “dead end stations” when his “stars” biggest issue is “How long do we have to go on for?”
And then there are the world’s most incompetent burglars. It is not a particularly wise action, if one plans to be a good burglar, to take a cab to the site of the planned robbery, or to sit on the bed and share concerns about marriage, day jobs and toilets, with a frantic fellow thief. And it’s always good idea in the burglary game, to check the alarm system.
The kaleidoscope of fascinating characters in this production continues.
There’s an aging rock star, a KISS wannabe, (his outfit had the audience in stitches), who finds a teenage girl, with mommy and daddy issues in his hotel room. He wants her out. She wants something else. How will it be resolved? And then there is the aging, and very klutzy stripper, who arrives at Charlie’s Roost, where her boss has some difficult news to share. And a wife planning to leave the husband who has always seemed more concerned about his career than he ever was about her: she just wants him to care. A man who is very ill, visited by a girl he loved in school. Movers who dismiss their inadequacies and limitations with the Canadian excuse “He played hockey.”
We know these people. We understand these people. That’s the Norm Foster magic. It is also the magic that has been created by the outstanding actors that director Donnie Bowes, has brought together to play all 15 roles. When Perry Mucci, Susan Greenfield, Sweeney MacArthur, Allan Cooke and Alison MacKay came out on stage for final bows the audience leaped to its feet cheering. This terrific cast really earned those cheers.
A word about the versatile, incredible sets built for this production by Playhouse technical director Sean Free: brilliant. We always knew exactly whose bedroom we were in. The scene changes were flawless, and brought the entire production together.
This is an Upper Canada Playhouse show full of characters we care about, situations we can understand, all wrapped up in laugh out loud comedy. Norm Foster’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ is Technicolour theatre magic.
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