The Miser of Middlegate presented by Zone 41 and Theatre Projects Manitoba, at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, October 3, 2013
Reviewed by Chandra Mayor
Like Scooby Doo and the gang for grown-ups, this production is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny from script to staging to performance. And I hardly ever laugh out loud in a theatre. I also don’t clap or join in group sing-alongs. Among performers and musicians, Winnipeg audiences are renowned for our unnervingly silent and intense engagement with whatever’s happening on the stage. This can feel eerie to out-of-towners and the uninitiated; we know, however, that if the room’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop or a thigh shift in a seat several rows away, it means that we’re really, really into it. (Often while smiling. Silently). It’s how we show respect.
But sometimes, a show is just too delicious for attentive silence. Tonight, the Asper Theatre at the University of Winnipeg was full of quick banter, goofy hi-jinks – and so much fun that we forgot that we don’t laugh like this.
A co-production of Zone 41 and Theatre Projects Manitoba, The Miser of Middlegate is local playwright Carolyn Gray’s take on the ties that bind one Winnipeg family – and these ties can all be counted in dollars. Nicholas Rice holds the show together as Winchell, the titular tight-fisted patriarch. Wealthy and retired, he siphons the gas from the car to store in Tupperware, counts the leftover shrimp in his foil swan restaurant leftovers, and seems incapable of a thought or sentence about anything other than protecting his money from the advancing hordes, even (especially) if the hordes are banging at the gilded gates from within his own home and family. Winchell’s wife Mia (Marina Stephenson Kerr) is a pinot grigio-swilling, Chanel-clad, take-no-prisoners mighty capitalist in her own right, Winchell’s best adversary. Shannon Guile plays their spoiled and vapid daughter, Emily, who speaks primarily in whines and/or verbal versions of text slang (YOLO!), and is obsessed with pilates, her sketchy fiancé Martin (Andrew Cecon), and scheming how to stay rich without working. Ryan James Miller nearly steals the show as Richard, the flaming butler with a hidden agenda.
These characters sound despicable. They are. That’s what makes them so good when things get complicated. Mia threatens to divorce Winchell over his miserly ways, but it’s not until she informs him of her intentions to take him to the cleaners that Winchell begins to panic, coming up with increasingly harebrained schemes; desperate, he’s even willing to win Mia back, if that’s what it takes to keep all his filthy lucre in his own hands/locked office/strongbox.
Emily’s willing to do whatever it takes to pry open her father’s tight fists long enough to shell out for the wedding dress of the century, plus a St. Barts ceremony, plus a comfortable life of yoga and surfing. The fiancé’s and the butler’s real motives aren’t revealed until the end, but each of them is willing to do just about anything to get money for nothing. (And at least one of them is happy for some chicks for free into the bargain). They all, of course, end up working against each other at every zany turn, and they all work very very hard to safeguard against actually needing to work at all.
Inspired by Moliere’s L’Avare and structured as an homage to the stylish screwball movie comedies of the ’30s, Gray’s script is a comedy of manners with no manners at all. It’s witty, energetic, mildly racy, and well-paced, including jokes about the Fort Garry Hotel, vibrators, lobster-throwing… and money. Director Krista Jackson keeps the show zipping from line to smart-aleck line, maintaining that taut divide between farce and comedy. This production allows the actors to fully exploit their proficiencies with physical comedy, including a dinner party during which the well-dressed guests are seated on giant rolling pilates balls.
Ryan James Miller oozes charm, chutzpah, and innuendo in or out of drag, hits the mark on every pratfall, and makes the audience laugh every time he appears onstage, even during set changes (thanks to a few well-timed hip swishes). If Guile’s Emily is occasionally overly shrill and not quite believable, she fully commits to funny and convincing temper tantrums. Kerr and Rice each give stand-out performances. Despite Mia’s questionable (and flexible) morals, Kerr plays her with such brazenness and obvious gusto that we can’t help but cheer for her. Rice uses his skillful physicality to convey Winchell’s almost-endearing cluelessness; he makes it very hard to hate Winchell, but he makes it very easy for the audience to laugh.
Best known for his innovative work with the manic and magic puppetry of Adhere and Deny, Grant Guy’s deceptively simple sets are the perfect setting for the madcap feel of the play. The sides open up, a chandelier drops from the ceiling, and characters exit through one of the many doors just as other characters enter through another. Greg Lowe’s musical score sets just the right tone of catchy, retro faux-sophistication; I even heard snatches of humming as patrons exited the theatre.
Perhaps this isn’t High Theatre, the kind that requires lengthy, earnest, post-theatre post-mortems to fully grasp each of the Aesthetic, Moral, and Intellectual nuances in the Work. Then again, things that make us laugh are much more easily dismissed out of hand than solemn Greek choruses, and that’s not only what makes them delightfully subversive, but also simply delightful to watch. Despite the irreverence of the characterizations and performances, Gray is asking us to consider some serious questions about family, love, what we value and what we’re willing to do for it; there’s plenty of fodder for post-theatre conversation and drinks if one is so inclined. There’s also immense satisfaction in spending a couple of hours watching a new and smart script in the hands of seasoned professionals who are working hard to keep us on our toes and make us laugh – and making it look like no work at all.
And any production that can transform a full room of silently attentive Winnipeg theatre-goers into our previous incarnations as delighted, giggling kids in front of Saturday morning cartoons is well worth the price of admission.
The Miser of Middlegate presented by Zone 41 and Theatre Projects Manitoba. Performances October 3-13, 2013, at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, 400 Colony St., Winnipeg MB.
Delightfully Subversive and Delightful to Watch
Columns
The Miser of Middlegate presented by Zone 41 and Theatre Projects Manitoba, at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, October 3, 2013
Reviewed by Chandra Mayor
Like Scooby Doo and the gang for grown-ups, this production is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny from script to staging to performance. And I hardly ever laugh out loud in a theatre. I also don’t clap or join in group sing-alongs. Among performers and musicians, Winnipeg audiences are renowned for our unnervingly silent and intense engagement with whatever’s happening on the stage. This can feel eerie to out-of-towners and the uninitiated; we know, however, that if the room’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop or a thigh shift in a seat several rows away, it means that we’re really, really into it. (Often while smiling. Silently). It’s how we show respect.
But sometimes, a show is just too delicious for attentive silence. Tonight, the Asper Theatre at the University of Winnipeg was full of quick banter, goofy hi-jinks – and so much fun that we forgot that we don’t laugh like this.
A co-production of Zone 41 and Theatre Projects Manitoba, The Miser of Middlegate is local playwright Carolyn Gray’s take on the ties that bind one Winnipeg family – and these ties can all be counted in dollars. Nicholas Rice holds the show together as Winchell, the titular tight-fisted patriarch. Wealthy and retired, he siphons the gas from the car to store in Tupperware, counts the leftover shrimp in his foil swan restaurant leftovers, and seems incapable of a thought or sentence about anything other than protecting his money from the advancing hordes, even (especially) if the hordes are banging at the gilded gates from within his own home and family. Winchell’s wife Mia (Marina Stephenson Kerr) is a pinot grigio-swilling, Chanel-clad, take-no-prisoners mighty capitalist in her own right, Winchell’s best adversary. Shannon Guile plays their spoiled and vapid daughter, Emily, who speaks primarily in whines and/or verbal versions of text slang (YOLO!), and is obsessed with pilates, her sketchy fiancé Martin (Andrew Cecon), and scheming how to stay rich without working. Ryan James Miller nearly steals the show as Richard, the flaming butler with a hidden agenda.
These characters sound despicable. They are. That’s what makes them so good when things get complicated. Mia threatens to divorce Winchell over his miserly ways, but it’s not until she informs him of her intentions to take him to the cleaners that Winchell begins to panic, coming up with increasingly harebrained schemes; desperate, he’s even willing to win Mia back, if that’s what it takes to keep all his filthy lucre in his own hands/locked office/strongbox.
Emily’s willing to do whatever it takes to pry open her father’s tight fists long enough to shell out for the wedding dress of the century, plus a St. Barts ceremony, plus a comfortable life of yoga and surfing. The fiancé’s and the butler’s real motives aren’t revealed until the end, but each of them is willing to do just about anything to get money for nothing. (And at least one of them is happy for some chicks for free into the bargain). They all, of course, end up working against each other at every zany turn, and they all work very very hard to safeguard against actually needing to work at all.
Inspired by Moliere’s L’Avare and structured as an homage to the stylish screwball movie comedies of the ’30s, Gray’s script is a comedy of manners with no manners at all. It’s witty, energetic, mildly racy, and well-paced, including jokes about the Fort Garry Hotel, vibrators, lobster-throwing… and money. Director Krista Jackson keeps the show zipping from line to smart-aleck line, maintaining that taut divide between farce and comedy. This production allows the actors to fully exploit their proficiencies with physical comedy, including a dinner party during which the well-dressed guests are seated on giant rolling pilates balls.
Ryan James Miller oozes charm, chutzpah, and innuendo in or out of drag, hits the mark on every pratfall, and makes the audience laugh every time he appears onstage, even during set changes (thanks to a few well-timed hip swishes). If Guile’s Emily is occasionally overly shrill and not quite believable, she fully commits to funny and convincing temper tantrums. Kerr and Rice each give stand-out performances. Despite Mia’s questionable (and flexible) morals, Kerr plays her with such brazenness and obvious gusto that we can’t help but cheer for her. Rice uses his skillful physicality to convey Winchell’s almost-endearing cluelessness; he makes it very hard to hate Winchell, but he makes it very easy for the audience to laugh.
Best known for his innovative work with the manic and magic puppetry of Adhere and Deny, Grant Guy’s deceptively simple sets are the perfect setting for the madcap feel of the play. The sides open up, a chandelier drops from the ceiling, and characters exit through one of the many doors just as other characters enter through another. Greg Lowe’s musical score sets just the right tone of catchy, retro faux-sophistication; I even heard snatches of humming as patrons exited the theatre.
Perhaps this isn’t High Theatre, the kind that requires lengthy, earnest, post-theatre post-mortems to fully grasp each of the Aesthetic, Moral, and Intellectual nuances in the Work. Then again, things that make us laugh are much more easily dismissed out of hand than solemn Greek choruses, and that’s not only what makes them delightfully subversive, but also simply delightful to watch. Despite the irreverence of the characterizations and performances, Gray is asking us to consider some serious questions about family, love, what we value and what we’re willing to do for it; there’s plenty of fodder for post-theatre conversation and drinks if one is so inclined. There’s also immense satisfaction in spending a couple of hours watching a new and smart script in the hands of seasoned professionals who are working hard to keep us on our toes and make us laugh – and making it look like no work at all.
And any production that can transform a full room of silently attentive Winnipeg theatre-goers into our previous incarnations as delighted, giggling kids in front of Saturday morning cartoons is well worth the price of admission.
The Miser of Middlegate presented by Zone 41 and Theatre Projects Manitoba. Performances October 3-13, 2013, at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, 400 Colony St., Winnipeg MB.