Stratford Festival Delights With a Sharply Funny “London Assurance” – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Stratford Theatre Review: Boucicault’s London Assurance

By Ross

Filled to overflowing with pampered aristocrats caught in the dazzled afflicted age of the 19th-Century, London Assurance, written most assuredly by the precocious Dion Boucicault at the young age of nineteen, takes over the grand Festival Theatre stage at Canada’s Stratford Festival with aplomb. It’s a frivolous fun foray, this comedy of manners, and as directed with a defining swift style by Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino (Stratford’s The Tempest), the clever satirical play finds its flavor in wordplay that is mighty playful and ridiculously charming. It’s not a deep dive into anything serious, but when the theatrical and historical formula is trusted, London Assurance does its duty beautifully and hilariously.

With a bit of razzle dazzle at play, especially in the superb costuming created by Francesca Callow (Stratford’s Three Tall Women) coupled with some pretty fabulous wigs (Sheri-Lynn Leblanc, Dave Kerr), London Assurance, set in a 19th-Century English world of delightful country manors and sarcastic servants, the play takes the challenge seriously, delighting us all in creating ludicrous characters acting out in ridiculously deliberate manners. Luckily, the casting is pure perfection, showcasing grand moments of commentary and comedy from every person who sets foot on that elegant thrust stage. Now I’m not sure that the Avon Theatre wouldn’t have been a better proceniumed alignment for this piece, but as played out on the Shakespearian thrust, designed lovingly by set and lighting designer Lorenzo Savoini (Soulpepper’s De Profundis), with a solid sound design by Ranil Sonnadara (Boldly Prod.’s Chris, Mrs.) and musical compositions by Wayne Kelso (Factory’s Escape from Happiness), the ride forward through gardens of mistaken identities and love proclamations is as expertly done as one could hope for.

To be honest, I never found myself fully swept up in the play’s dramatic irony and swift asides explaining the scenes and the connections, but I think that’s more of a historical perspective than anything else. It’s the style of the times, one might say, leaning more towards an early Oscar Wilde sentiment than Shakespearian, but the fun that is created on that stage poking fun at those holding power and sway is joyfully produced and masterfully given, thanks to all involved. Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777), a play celebrated for its wit and satire, was written about 50 years before London Assurance (1841), and Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) was about 50 years after, and in that framing, we feel the advancement of Victorian satire in its roots. Boucicault sets off to skewer the arrogance of the rich, as any good satire likes to do, during a time when dandy types like the impossible-to-take-seriously Sir Harcourt Courtly were considered distinguished citizens and leaders of society.

Embodied by the magnificent Geraint Wyn Davies (“Slings and Arrows“; Stratford’s Grand Magic), Stratford Festival‘s Sir Harcourt Courtly is deliciously dandy playing the framing to perfumed perfection. We can almost smell the obliviousness and pretense that radiates from this man. He talks about his pursuit of marriage to a much younger woman by the name of Grace Harkaway, played gorgeously by Marissa Orjalo (Stratford’s Les Belles-Soeurs), but it’s clear that this is mainly because of a sizable inheritance that would. come his way from a complicated legal formality. Davies’ Courtly is obviously an oblivious fop of the highest order, obsessed with high fashion and social standing. He’s as vain as they come, and in the wrong hands, he could have been the most horrible of creatures, but the way Davies embraces the man’s inability to really see himself through another’s eyes, like the wonderfully talented, “best liar in London“, Cool, played to tight perfection by Rylan Wilkie (Stratford’s Twelfth Night), the performance that Davies gives is delightfully silly and ridiculous, in a way that we can’t hate the man as he struts across the stage in some of the most riotous of costumes.

Elevating the scenario within the first few moments of London Assurance, we are introduced to the depravity of Courtly’s handsome and rakish son, Charles, played captivatingly by Austin Eckert (Stratford’s Much Ado About Nothing), who has returned very early in the morning after a very late night of partying. He is unabashed in his debauchery, accompanied by a cling-on con artist by the name of Richard Dazzle, played cunningly by Emilio Vieira (Stratford’s Richard II). Mr. Cool, dutifully, has them covered, but after an untimely run-in between Dazzle and a visiting friend of the family, the country squire Max Harkaway, played by David Collins (Stratford’s Grand Magic), who happens to be the wealthy uncle of Sir Harcourt’s betrothed, Grace, an alteration has begun. In a flash, a friendship materializes between the two, mainly because of Dazzle’s ability to manipulate and lie for a meal and a bedroom, and he is invited to Harkaway’s country estate, Oak Hall. Dazzle, soon after, invites Charles along when it becomes clear some debt collectors, led by Constable Squeezer (Scott Wentworth), are knocking on their door and storming the castle. So off everyone goes. To the country, where we know the quiet weekend that has been planned will be anything but.

“Perfume in the country?” What an insult, they proclaim, as this rollicking romp of a play finds its way to the one place least suited to Sir Harcourt Courtly’s personage. He arrives eager to engage with his betrothed, yet we meet her first, as she insists to Pert, her maid (Hilary Adams) that this marriage is exactly what she wants; security on both financial and social landscapes. That is until she runs into both father and son, who are equally caught unaware that they are both visiting the same country estate. Love and disgust are both thrown up into the air, as the unexpected gathering of visitors plays havoc with the planned nuptials. Thank god, we say, as it is quite clear who we want to come together in the end.

But the best is yet to come. And I’m referring to the arrival and use of the fantastically funny and sharply created Lady Gay Spanker, played to perfection by the wonderful Deborah Hay (Shaw’s Blithe Spirit) and her seemingly frail, feeble husband, the sweet-natured Adolphus Spanker, smartly portrayed by Michael Spencer-Davis (Stratford’s Love’s Labour’s Lost). First off, you got to love these names given by playwright Boucicault (A Legend of the Devil’s Dyke), but more so, you just got to love the feisty fantastic energy that Hay brings to this wonderfully conceived part. She lays claim to every lively moment on that stage, especially regarding the love-struck Courtly who, like everyone in the audience, falls instantly for this intelligent, self-possessed woman.

Without Hay’s Lady Spanker with riding crop in hand, London Assurance, I assure you, would not be the hilariously wild romp that it is. But with her, it is filled to overflowing with hilarious wonderment, with ridiculous disguises and schemes of love and romance all around. Rivaling last year’s finest comedy of the season, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, London Assurances plays it well and clever. And although it doesn’t ultimately best its competition, it does come pretty darn close in the number of laughs given. The cast soars within its asides and satire, delivering a piece scented with kindness, fondness, and enough silliness to make us all sit up and take notice.

London Assurance runs in repertory at the Festival Theatre until Oct. 25. For information and tickets, click here.