Tons of Money stars Julia Course as Louise Allington and Mike Nadajewski as Aubrey Henry Maitland Allington. Course’s understudy was filling in when The Globe was in attendance.David Cooper/Supplied
Title: Tons of Money
Written by: Will Evans and Arthur Valentine
Performed by: Mike Nadajewski, Marla McLean, Qasim Khan, Graeme Somerville, Lindsay Wu, Nehassaiu deGannes, Ron Kennell, Sepehr Reybod, Julia Course
Directed by: Eda Holmes
Company: Shaw Festival
Venue: Royal George Theatre
City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
Year: Until Oct. 5, 2025
Gosh, I love a farce. The genre makes for perfect summer theatre fare – easy to follow, easier still to laugh at before inhaling an ice cream or piece of fudge.
Tons of Money, starring Mike Nadajewski as Aubrey, a bumbling, blustering con man determined to hold onto every last penny of a sizable inheritance, ought to be wonderful. Nadajewski is funny, smarmy and sharp; Qasim Khan as the relentless estate lawyer is excellent, too.
But alas, the beauty of live theatre is also its occasional downfall: Julia Course, who normally plays Aubrey’s wife, Louise, was out of the show on the day I attended. Normally, that would be disappointing without being a major concern – understudies exist for a reason.
But on Wednesday evening, understudy Marla McLean went on for the leading female role script in hand, glancing frequently at the pages during pivotal scenes involving whip-quick dialogue and gesture-heavy arguments. Normally, you’d want a script like this one to fly by, the actors’ kinetic limbs to feel like cogs in a well-oiled machine; on this occasion, they don’t.
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McLean’s not bad in the role, all things considered – her faux-English accent is fairly convincing, and she and Nadajewski are an amusing pair when they hit their stride – but the patrons who tutted under their breath about the issue during intermission were somewhat justified in their annoyance: The show’s been out of previews since the beginning of May. Tickets are full price. What gives?
Understudies aside, Eda Holmes helms a tight, attractive production of Will Evans’s and Arthur Valentine’s quirky script. Judith Bowden’s luxurious set captures the faux-gilded poise of the wannabe British aristocracy – her costumes, too, conjure a moneyed social class a world away.
When we meet Aubrey and Louise, they’re on the brink of bankruptcy – they’ve maxed out their various lines of credit and risk being booted from their well-to-do estate. But when a death in the family results in the inheritance of thousands of dollars, Aubrey and Louise start scheming – how can they keep the money without being forced to pay their debts with it?
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A kink in the terms of Aubrey’s inheritance – if he dies, the cash will flow not to his wife, but to his cousin in Mexico – leads to a highly entertaining chain of disguises, mistaken identities and persistently silly coincidences. Lindsay Wu plays the cousin’s ex-wife – his widow, we’re led to believe more than once. Each time a version of the cousin comes to life, suggested by an outlandish false mustache on no fewer than three actors, the character believes it’s her husband resurrected from the dead, and begs him to take her for a mid-afternoon stroll. It’s a funny recurring bit, and Wu is great in the role.
But it’s Nadajewski and Khan who are the reason to see Tons of Money – on Wednesday night, one of the show’s highlights was watching Khan trying (unsuccessfully) not to crack up at Nadajewski’s ridiculous antics. If you missed the latter actor’s outrageous performance in Talk Is Free Theatre’s production of La Bête last year, this one’s a close second: This sort of play is exactly where Nadajewski shines brightest.
Holmes’s production, plied with impressive special effects and hilarious “death” sequences for poor Aubrey, mostly ticks along, neither too long nor overly breezy. And in the soon-to-be-closed Royal George Theatre, the enterprise feels cozy and vibrant – it’s a shame the performance I saw wasn’t the one the company rehearsed.
All in, Tons of Money’s a fun watch – in truth, the strongest of the Shaw performances I caught this week. But the understudy issue is confounding. Did this production need more actors? More time? It’s safe to assume the answer is the title of this show: moolah, and more of it than the production team had at their disposal. Either way, I hope to catch the production again once Course is back on – or once McLean has mastered her lines.