Photo: Maria Vartanova

Deadly Murder feels a lot like a weak rewrite of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap. In fact, playwright David Foley describes his thriller — originally entitled If/Then — as being in the tradition of Sleuth and Deathtrap.

Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth was written in 1970. Ira Levin’s Deathtrap (last performed at Ottawa Little Theatre earlier this year, during its 100^th season) was written in 1978. Both revolve around murderous game playing and shocking audiences when the dead or almost dead come back to life.

The form of Foley’s Deadly Murder, first performed in 2008, is similar. The product is just not as good. So the first question is why Ottawa Little Theatre chose to mount it just six months after its better-version big brother was seen on the OLT stage.

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First a novel, then a movie, finally a spoof of both. John Buchan’s acclaimed 1915 spy story was made into an equally acclaimed suspense movie by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. (John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, a former Governor General of Canada, instituted the Governor General’s literary awards in 1940.)

Patrick Barlow’s 2005 comic adaptation of Buchan’s spy thriller tips the hat ironically at both genres. This version of The 39 Steps, while amusing and giving an almost frame-by-frame mocking tip of the hat to film noir, will not appeal to every taste. In the interests of full disclosure, I am one of those not thrilled by the style of comedy with its repetitive format and protracted jokes.

Nevertheless, such moments as escaping through very mobile window frames or dancing through assorted and equally mobile doorways are very funny. They are well executed in the effectively timed Kanata Theatre production, directed by Sandy Wynne.

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Photo. Maria Vartenova

Expect no profound messages or, for that matter, much skin in Norm Foster’s latest comedy. Beyond the underlying theme that poverty makes respectable folks take risks, Skin Flick is intended as a send up of the “adult film” industry and is written for laughs.

Rollie and Daphne Waters, an ordinary suburban couple whose son has just started a pricey university program, are out of work and out of cash. Their rough cameraman friend, Alex — a juicy part that Foster wrote for himself — has just been fired. When, Jill, an out-of-work actress with low self-esteem, mistakenly delivers a balloon-gram to the Waters’ house, the group decides that making a DIY porn movie is the way out of their financial troubles. All they need is an appropriately endowed leading man. Enter Alex’s mild-mannered, shy bookmaker, Byron Hobbs.

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Photo thanks to Tototoo productions. POSTER.

Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen is the story of a deeply flawed human being told in equally flawed dramatic/melodramatic format.

Miranda Rights, the aging drag queen of the title, is not quite ready for her close-up when her visitor and would-be biographer, John Morgan, arrives on the scene. His role through the extended exposition — much of it a drag in the other sense — is to listen to the pathetic ranting of the campy Miranda, while attempting to keep her on track as she justifies the murderous rampage that landed her in prison for a quarter of a century.

With ruthless pruning, Miranda’s monologue might hold the attention more effectively, but, as written, it is too repetitive and periodically boringly circular. Little wonder that, in the Toto Too production, Barry Daley marred an otherwise excellent performance by needing several prompts that caused glitches in both rhythm and characterization.

The move from the comic and stereotypical sequences of Act I to the melodramatic twists and dialogue (Hallelujah!) of Act II gives natural impetus to conversation and character. Although Act II flows more naturally, the change of pace and tone jar at times. (Confessions started off as a monologue. Playwright David Blue is reported as saying that the second character was not added until the twelfth draft.)

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Photo: Jean-Denis Labelle

Set up as his and her takes on marital values, The Marriage-Go-Round by Leslie Stevens was well received as a stage play in 1958 and bombed as a movie three years later.

The premise of the sex comedy is that college professor Paul Delville and dean of women Content Lowell hit the first rough patch in their 25-years of marital bliss in the form of a blonde, Swedish seductress, intent on Paul being the father of the child she plans to have.

On the brink of infidelity, he continues to lecture on monogamy, while Content seeks advice from her best friend on campus, a married man, who halfheartedly tries to seduce her.

In the Classic Theatre Festival production, director Laurel Smith maximizes pregnant pauses and focuses on the highly expressive faces of Rachel Jones as Content and Scott Clarkson as Paul as the two ride the marriage-go-round with aplomb. Meanwhile, Elisabeth Lagerhőf, as the Swedish siren Katrin, makes a concerted effort to reel Paul in and Kevin Hare, as Ross, delivers his insincere attempt to step up from platonic friend to lover.

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Photo courtesy of the Perth  Classic Festival

The Star-Spangled Girl has never been considered one of Neil Simon’s stronger plays — even by Simon, who is reported as saying that he “knew it didn’t have the body” to be “a powerful comedy.”

The 1966 script contains a number of the playwright’s trademark one-liners, but is tentative in stepping into political waters, despite the fact that the storyline supposedly focuses on two radicals publishing a protest magazine in San Francisco.

Any radical views have little punch mainly because Simon is really writing a cute love-triangle comedy in which the only near-political comment is when Sophie, the southern-belle patriot, says she would fight for freedom of speech, no matter how wrong the views expressed.

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Photo. Maria Vartanova

Michael Frayn’s three-act backstage farce about farce has been called the funniest comedy ever written. For first-time viewers who love the genre, maybe so, but Noises Off is also notoriously difficult to stage effectively.

Lampooning a bad play-within-a-play, Noises off features a group of weak actors at war with each other, touring a traditional sex farce called Nothing On. All the usual attributes, primarily the shedding of clothes and the constant rushing in and out of many doors are highlighted. The fact that Frayn calls for a two-level set that must be viewed from the audience and backstage perspectives at various times during the three-acts complicates matters further. Added to this, the real drama takes place behind the scenes as the Noises Off reveal love triangles and sexual liaisons gone awry and the actors seek revenge by sabotaging fellow cast members.

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Photo. Broadway@calm  At one point during Jersey Boys, a few audience members spring to their feet to dance as they did in their teens when they were first enchanted by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. While it is a compliment to the performers that these women have been so transported, most of the rest of the audience simply sat back to see the high-energy production unfold and admire the slickness of Des McAnuff’s direction of the history of the rise, fall and return of four kids from the wrong side of the tracks.

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