REVIEW
Wrong Window
St. Albert Dinner Theatre
Runs from Nov. 24 to 26
Kinsmen Banquet Hall
47 Riel Drive.
Tickets: Call 780-222-0102 or visit www.stalberttheatre.com
There’s something exciting about being a spy, isn’t there? Just putting on a rain-splattered trench coat and fedora and checking out others like a master sleuth. It’s intriguing, thrilling and loads of fun.
Mystery writer Marnie Elbies sees herself as a super sleuth who is not above picking up binoculars and spying on the neighbours – especially now that she’s in a dry spell trying to manufacture a plot for her next exciting novel.
It’s her insatiable curiosity that puts an urban foursome on the hunt for a murderer in Wrong Window, a take-off on Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller, Rear Window. The two-act launches St. Albert Dinner Theatre’s season opener.
However, American playwrights Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore toss out about 75 per cent of the movie director’s suspenseful action and replace it with tailor-made farce. Although deliberately lacking in much of the legendary filmmaker’s psychological suspense, there are numerous references throughout the play from other Hitchcock movies including The Birds, North by Northwest, Dial M For Murder and The 39 Steps.
Marnie and her husband Jeff are back together after a one-year break from their marriage. Both appear happy about the reunion and determined to make it work the second time around. When their best friends, Midge and Robbie Smith, arrive for drinks and dinner, a screaming match erupts in an apartment across the courtyard.
The big hulking Thor Larswald and his petite yoga instructor wife, Lila, are at each other’s throats. At first, it looks like an abusive domestic dispute. When Lila is not seen for a couple of days, Marnie and Midge immediately assume murder and make plans to break into the Larswald apartment to search for evidence. Jeff, on the other hand, is reluctant to become involved since he had a relationship with Lila earlier when Marnie temporarily suspended their marriage with a trip to California.
Throughout the two acts, the four principal characters trespass onto private property, trip, hide and scamper through doors and hallways trying to solve the mystery of the missing Lila while avoiding Thor and his anger management issues.
Director Stuart McGowan, directing his second play for St. Albert Dinner Theatre, sets the tone and atmosphere with mysterious-sounding music at the beginning and keeps the pace moving at a fast clip.
Xera Preshing’s character Marnie Elbies is without a doubt a determined writer. She picks up the scent of murder and sticks to it like a bloodhound. Kelly Krause’s Jeff Elbies is the more cautious and reluctant partner – one who gets squeamish at the idea of touching a dead body. So, when forced to hug a corpse, Krause sets off a room full of prolonged laughter.
Carolyn McGratton's Midge Smith loves a good gossip and is not shy about using her sex appeal to bamboozle Loomis, the building caretaker with keys to the Larswald apartment. Colin Stewart, in one of his strongest characterizations yet, returns to the stage in the role of Robbie Smith, a conscientious man ready to support his wife and friends no matter how crazy their quest.
Christopher Thrall, a tall, heavy-set actor, is appropriately intimidating as the loud boisterous Thor Larswald, a guy you would not want to meet in an alley on a dark night. Sarah Gibson as Lila Larswald has a limited role onstage, but one that surprises and shocks.
Tim Kubasek as Loomis plays his character with a blend of goofiness and slyness, while Rob Beeston as the by-the-book Detective Thomas is wound as tight as a spring.
Wrong Window, a St. Albert Dinner Theatre production, runs Nov. 24-26 at St. Albert Kinsmen Banquet Hall, 47 Riel Drive.
