Whether you ever cared for western movies or not, you’ll find much to like in this well-paced Canadian comedy.
By Gary Smith | Special to The Hamilton Spectator
August 8th, 2025
Like mistaken identities and shootouts in saloons? Like a lily-white good guy who’s fighting for truth and justice in a town where six-shooters define the kind of law and order that ruled the Old West?
Want to watch the good guy, handsome as a hoot owl on a hot summer night, make a sweet bid for the perky, but emancipated town dream queen?
Well then, I’ve got a comedy for you.
“Pinkerton Comes to Prospect” is old-time nostalgia knocked right into the 21st century. It sits quite nicely on the Lighthouse Festival Theatre stage at Port Dover against set designer Megan Cinel’s nostalgic-looking set, washed over by Alex Sykes’ painterly lighting.
Everyone is dressed appropriately in costume designer Alex Amini’s worn western duds, looking like folks out of a vintage John Huston movie. It’s easy to believe, in fact, that we are in some 1890 town somewhere in North America.
Fortunately, a strong acting cast is on hand to get us through some rather broad comedy of the most physical kind, before Jamie Williams’ rather schizophrenic play decides to settle down and look for a modicum of truth in the better-constructed second act.
It’s worth the wait.
Director Steven Gallagher is a dab hand at the sort of choreography that makes the physical nonsense of the outrageous sort work. With “Pinkerton Comes to Prospect” he’s even better at making the romantic warmth of the relationships in playwright Williams’ last act navigate some leftover silliness.
This allows us to walk out of the theatre feeling such old-fashioned values as family, love and loyalty to relations and friends are, at the same time, thoroughly modern and worth caring about.
Even so, it’s difficult to understand what Williams is trying to do early on with so much overt comedy. He tends to swamp the play with laugh lines before finally settling down to make his characters believable.
Of course, in many ways the play is a farce, with all the madness and outrageous invention of such a genre.When young and handsome Herschel Penkerton comes to town with his cartographer’s equipment to do some survey work, he is mistaken for a tough gunslinger called Pinkerton, hired by Prospect’s town mayor to protect him from a bold gunfighter who plans to do him in.
Now, I wouldn’t dream of telling you how things turn out. And you probably wouldn’t believe me if I did. Let’s just say you’ll have fun watching the craziness work itself out and more reality creep in.
Ryan Bommarito is perfect as the poor put-upon Penkerton falling for the outspoken Miss Lacey of Evelyn Wiebe. She’s spot-on as the emancipated woman he chooses to share his cartographer’s tools with.
Matthew Olver has fun with the role of Doc, the mayor, doctor, slightly sadistic dentist, and a bit of a selfish cad. Because this is a comedy he, of course, straightens up and finally comes to terms with happiness.
Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski, who was terrific in “Bed and Breakfast” in Dover, works a tad too hard here at the role of Amos, the saloon dogsbody. He isn’t helped by being handed laugh lines that just don’t land and by being made to perform visual shtick that becomes tiresome.
It’s not his fault, either, that the role has been written with a very heavy hand.
I can’t tell you a lot about the character Jessica Sherman plays without giving away a key surprise and spoiling your enjoyment of the play. Let’s just say Sherman gives a terrific performance and helps to give this comedy its second act resuscitation that gives the play its rapidly beating heart.
“Pinkerton Comes to Prospect” begins as an outrageous comedy with physical high-jinks and plenty of comic situations.
It finishes by becoming a rather gentle and loving look at romance, friendship and truth, and suggests the need to embrace the world with hope and humane intentions. What starts out as a frantic, overly busy comedy, becomes a warm and tender realization of how necessary family and union really are.
Whether you ever cared for western movies or not, you’ll find much to like in this well-paced Canadian comedy.
Go have fun.
Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
Gary Smith has written about theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator, as well as a variety of international publications, for more than 40 years.
