Mathew Hulshof, Bella King, Rachel Bowron in On The Banks Of The Nut, Teatro Live!. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.
By Liz Nicholls,
In On The Banks Of the Nut, the vintage Stewart Lemoine screwball comedy, with unusual trimmings, getting an expertly acted revival at Teatro Live! (its first in 15 years) you’ll repeatedly hear six words bound to up the ante on impending chaos. “I can help you with that.”
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Does Noreen Cuthbert (the delightful Bella King), a premium office temp — she’s an Inkwell Girl after all! —have a plan? Well, no. But neither does her new temporary boss Pinkerton Sprague (Sam Free, a find), the “federal talent agent” for the state of Wisconsin. The “eminent temp” quickly ascertains that he is a civil servant “without a clue of any kind.” And she takes charge, as Inkwell Girls have been trained to do.
“I’m a soldier of fortune in the clerical world,” declares the bright, breezy Noreen in a turn of phrase that, like so many in this nutty, and very funny, 2001 show, is pure Lemoine, floated with breezy good cheer by King at high speed.
What ensues, at Noreen’s instigation, is a quest, in the rural Wisconsin of 1951 — “we must cast our net wide” — to find “a citizen of exceptional talent.” On Chantel Fortin’s evocative green-tinged set, it brings the pair to Nut River Lodge, in the middle of a romantic crisis involving the powerful aphrodisiac effect of great orchestral music. Notably that hit-meister of late Germanic Romanticism Gustav Mahler, and specifically the third movement of Mahler’s Third Symphony, and even more specifically — Lemoine is nothing if not specific about his musical references — the post-horn solo therein.
On a big-city trip to see the Chicago Symphony in concert, the eccentric rural hotel proprietor Vivien Phlox (Rachel Bowron) has had a Mahler epiphany. And she’s fallen for the post-horn player Ingo Flussveld (Mathew Hulshof). Mahler has spoken to her via this niche virtuoso on an obscure archaic instrument, who has an uncanny resemblance to the late great composer.
Back home the morning after, Vivien is conflicted about her own “misbehaviour.” Bowron, a Teatro leading lady of long standing with a galactic smile, who can speak volumes by arching an eyebrow, turns in a sparkling performance, skeptical and flamboyant and flirtatious; Vivien seems to be auditioning to see who she is (it’s in the plot).
Rachel Bowron and Mathew Hulshof in On The Banks Of The Nut, Teatro Live! Photo by Marc J Chalifoux
The arrival of Ingo Flussveld, still in his performance tux and hilariously (dare one say Germanically?) lugubrious in Mathew Hulshof’s performance, is a challenge, for both parties and for the peppy problem-solver Noreen. Can it be right, Ingo wonders, to have “an immutable love and be forced to pay for it with one’s happiness?” Extravagant unrequited passion intermingled with lush despair: It’s a veritable manifesto of Romanticism.
It need hardly be said that the mainstream screwball repertoire isn’t exactly crammed with surprising developments that put the capital R back in Romantic. The poetry of Tennyson is also rarely tapped by screwball narratives.
Sam Free and Karen Johnson Diamond in On The Banks of the Nut, Teatro Live! Photo by Marc J Chalifoux
Wandering through On The Banks Of The Nut, is a tourist who’s arrived for some r and r, hoping to finish reading the Mazo de la Roche series. She’s sometimes in tweed with bird-watching binoculars around her neck, sometimes in a bathrobe carrying her purse. Leona Brausen’s costumes are a stitch, in every way.
Brausen, who originated the role of Sylvia Partangle herself, is a hard act to follow. But the Calgary-based comedy veteran Karen Johnson Diamond in this her Teatro debut, is a riot, perplexed but game.
Mathew Hulshof, Bella King, Rachel Bowron in On The Banks Of The Nut, Teatro Live! Photo by Marc J Chalifoux
Suddenly everything goes madcap, as screwball comedies have an inevitable tendency to do (pull one thread, tell one lie, and see what happens). Like all good improvisers, agent provocateur Noreen is a an unfaze-able Yes-sayer, with one exception. She nixes pie-eating before 11 in the morning (it sets up “unreasonable expectations for the rest of the day”). Anyhow she advises the boss that they should remain incognito to get the best results. And in a fine comic performance from newcomer Free, the talent agent tucks energetically, and with serious intent, into his assignment, with unexpected results.
The production directed by the playwright has the cast in perpetual motion. And the scene changes, accompanied by the jaunty Mozart French horn concertos, are fun. Which makes On The Banks Of The Nut the only screwball (to my knowledge) with not one but two kinds of horn jokes. Taking a cue from Gustav, voices intersect, and incipient chaos swells climactically. You just have to shake your head and smile.
REVIEW
On The Banks Of The Nut
Theatre: Teatro Live!
Written by: Stewart Lemoine
Directed by: Stewart Lemoine
Starring: Sam Free, Bella King, Rachel Bowron, Mathew Hulshof, Karen Johnson Diamond
Where: Varscona Theatre, 10329 83 Ave.
Running: Friday through June 15
Tickets: teatrolive.com
