The Stratford Festival Theatre Review: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
By Ross
Beautifully gowned women adorned in diamonds swirl in a rainbow of colors across the ballroom floor, all looking for their idealized prince. They are all ripe for the picking, as we soon find out, ready and willingly as the Stratford Festival‘s joyful musical production, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with a hilariously clever book by Jeffrey Lane (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Musical) and delictable music and lyrics by David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit), floats in on a sea of refined giddy glory, giving us all, most deliciously, exactly what we want. Based on the film “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” by Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro, and Paul Henning, the musical, which originally opened on Broadway in March 2005 at the Imperial Theatre, running a total of 626 performances, and garnered ten Tony Award nominations, including one win for Norbert Leo Butz, has now made its way to the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario. Butz won for his scene-stealing turn around the floor as the goofball con artist Freddy Bensen, and now, played to perfection here in Stratford by Liam Tobin (Stratford’s Spamalot), he is as ready and randy as the show itself, taking over the floor and that stage with a glorious gouging that brings smiles and laughter in abundance.
Delightfully scandalous and silly, these Dirty Rotten Scoundrels float in from the Mediterranean Sea and land, like a colorfully comic cartoon seagull on the shores of the French Riviera, perfectly drawn and hilariously on point. It takes flight with a feathery and bedazzled ease as we engage most happily with the debonair Lawrence Jameson, portrayed charmingly by Jonathan Goad (Stratford’s The Diviners), as he swindles and charms his way to riches, making it up (gloriously) as he goes along. He uses a fraudulently fun royal formula, assisted on all fronts by the chief of police, Andre Thibault, strongly portrayed by Derek Kwan (Stratford’s Salesman in China) and the staff of a glamorous hotel, beautifully brought to chandeliered life by set designer Lorenzo Savoini (Soulpepper’s Mother’s Daughter) and lighting designer Michael Walton (Stratford’s Chicago), to casually, with romantic style, fill their hungry pockets with the wealthy ladies’ generous deposits of diamonds and jewels.
It’s a smooth system of desire and deceit they have going, slipping Euros into the outstretched hands of the hotel clerks and bellhops (Eric Abel, Henry Firmston, Stephen Patterson, and more) in exchange for valuable information about their rich lady guests particularly, their weaknesses and proclivities, then dancing in with his phony prince charm to extract what he wants directly from their outstretched hands. It’s a grand success, and he’s making a bundle, as we can see from his fancy digs, that is, until a tall, handsome, goofball American stranger sits down next to our favorite con artist. And over the course of a meal of raw beets and a sad, sad story told to a pretty traveler, a game of ‘who is the best con artist in town’ blossoms up from the marble floors and takes these two for an escapist ride they did not expect when they boarded that train.
The whole thing is a little (or a lot) like that other film-to-stage musical, The Producers, where con men use their so-called charm to swindle old ladies out of donations most magically. As directed with flair by Tracey Flye (Musical Stage’s Next to Normal) and choreographed energetically by Stephanie Graham (Stratford’s Twelfth Night), these Dirty Rotten Scoundrels do the job most convincingly by continually reinventing the game to outsmart each other as they slip in hilariously staged and performed schemes into our happily accepting pockets, all played out within ridiculous scenarios in high concept comedic conundrums determined to make us grin ear to ear.
Tobin is absolutely stupendous and deliciously vulgar as somewhat of an idiot, dressed to delight us all in witty, wonderful costumes by Sue LePage (Stratford’s Romeo and Juliet) with his somewhat sorta witty songs that shine his performed silliness outward. He’s a tall drink of tasty water with a whole heap of talent squeezed in, taking over the stage with his “Great Big Stuff” delivery. It’s impossible to look away when he flies across the stage as he tries, quite successfully, to force Lawrence into taking him under his classy wing to teach him the treacherous tricks of the trade. Yet, his skills are drawn from a different kind of bottle and a vastly different vintage of wine. Goad’s Lawrence exemplifies everything that bubbles up from a rather finely crafted glass of champagne (which, in reality, as it turns out, is more like a sparkling wine from Niagara) that flows regally from Lawrence’s refined lips. But the two men come together, even if it doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense, teaming up to deliver each other in and out of some hilariously contrived situations, particularly the lasso that is aimed at Lawrence’s neck, swinging most gloriously in circles high above the red clad form of the wonderfully funny Jolene Oakes, hilariously portrayed by Michele Shuster (Neptune’s Shrek).
It’s all spectacularly ridiculous, done up with all the expertise one would expect from the Stratford Festival and their musical theatre programming, with all the required shenanigans unleashed hilariously under that finely curved staircase in Lawrence’s palatial abode on the French Riviera. It’s wonderfully stupid, in the best of all possible ways, as we watch these pros, all of them, deliver the goods in animated cleverness, almost like a great Disney cartoon, but in grand human form. And with the gloriously staged arrival of an American Soap heiress, Christine Colgate, played smartly by the gifted Shakura Dickson (Soulpepper’s A Streetcar Named Desire), a whole new kind of game gets underway, prompting a conman battle to see who can fleece this heiress first with the grand prize being the grift, I mean, gift of remaining on the French Riviera unexposed and able to continue in the clever career of the con.
All the while, there’s another delightfully sweet gamble dancing forward from the sidelines, one that lives in the required starry seduction of the wealthy Muriel Eubanks, played absolutely wonderfully by Sara-Jeanne Hosie (Stratford’s La Cage Aux Folles), by Lawrence’s corruptable co-conspirator, the police chief, Andre Thibault (Kwan). It starts out as a distraction so the smitten Muriel will leave Lawrence alone, but the spark turns into a flame both unexpected and adorable. The forward motion of their engagement is the tender connection that we all can get behind, as there is a sweetness to their very funny postcoital hangover. Poised most wonderfully on a balcony reminiscing of all that has drunkenly transpired, and backed by the gloriously delivered music direction of Franklin Brasz (Stratford’s Rent) and a solid sound by Ranil Sonnadara (Stratford’s Grand Magic), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels finds its true emotional heart, and its forever feistiness in it’s surprisingly tender underbelly.
There’s nothing all that subtle or deep in this con artist battle of deception and leg-whipping hilarity. Nor is the combative corruption of con artists in competition. It’s as old as a grift in time, but as delivered by the Stratford Festival, the formula feels as fresh as a Mediterranean sea breeze. And with the moon, the mood, and that accordion music floating in on cue, how could we not be charmed, while also giggling with delight every thigh-slapping crack of the stick switch. The more they dance and delight in their delicious deceptions, the more we are charmed by their naughty high comedy debaucheries. It’s a throwback to a different era, when comedy and music come together to delight and entertain on the highest levels of ridiculousness. Ya gotta love these Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, simply and happily, cause they just keep on giving us what we want with every song, step, and silly bit of scandelous fun.
