I Heard About Your Murder looks at family and secrets

Playwright-director Stewart Lemoine’s world premiere of I Heard About Your Murder is far from your typical murder mystery. Now that doesn’t mean there’s minimal subterfuge.

There’s a great deal of duplicity running through Teatro La Quindicina’s newest slapstick romp.

It’s just that Lemoine, a cagey master at misdirection, has created such a tangled web of red herrings, lies, omissions and improvisations, it’s a miracle he ties all the disparate threads together into a trim package at the end.

I Heard About Your Murder opened Thursday night at the refurbished Varscona Theatre.

Set designer Chantal Fortin tricked out the stage as a two-storey mountain cabin complete with five doors giving actors numerous opportunities to cut loose and work through a series of shenanigans.

The wooden cabin, located in British Columbia’s Interior, is decorated with comfy sofas, landscape paintings and a deer head skeleton hanging on the wall.

Although not completely creepy, the skeleton suggests that everything in this lovely cabin is not quite the way it should be.

The audience quickly finds out there is more – a lot more – to the way each character represents themselves.

Here’s the setup: the nebbish Howard Forrester (Garett Ross) arrives at the cabin to spend his 10th wedding anniversary with a flight stewardess.

Confused by littered champagne bottles on the floor, Howard falls apart after he discovers Dan (Mathew Hulsof), his brother-in-law sleeping on the sofa. It’s oh so awkward to be caught in the act by your wife’s brother.

Dan, on the other hand, is indignant at Howard’s betrayal. His furtive glances and tough-guy attitude coupled with a talent for extracting information and a mysterious briefcase suggests skullduggery at work.

Nancy (Kendra Connor) is the hottie Howard picks up. Pretty and petite, she’s very much a survivor skilfully adept at lying and evading the truth, especially if it’s for a personal cause.

Without having told her husband, Dodie Forrester (Jenny McKillop) appears at the cabin. When confronted, Dodie quickly comes up with an underhanded excuse she’s enjoying a girls’ weekend with good friend Sharon (Patricia Cerra).

However, Howard has never heard of Sharon, a mysterious, sophisticated woman with a deep-rooted knowledge of vacation properties.

And Simon (Vincent Forcier), although he appears only in the second act as a man carrying bundles of cash and multiple passports under different aliases, is a wounded chameleon sparking off a flurry of questions.

There’s a conspiracy afoot, or maybe six, and everyone is obscuring their real intentions. The cast’s performances are mostly stereotypical and that’s part of their fundamental success.

Ross, a former St. Albert Children’s Theatre alumnus, is utterly charming as the nervous, stuttering Howard racked by guilt in betraying his wife. Ross has a knack for developing hangdog, neurotic characters that reveal their vulnerabilities, and in this show he steps up to the plate in full glory.

McKillop, a former St. Albert resident, saturates her Dodie, a slightly daffy, and too-talkative woman, with a maternal kindness that makes her everyone’s best friend.

As the other woman, Connor is the young trendsetter out for a weekend of fun yet willing to shift loyalties at the toss of a dime. Seemingly shallow and hard, Connor’s Nancy spontaneously opens up to reveal a rich character with more layers than expected.

It was also amazing to see how much emotion Hulsof could convey with Dan’s grim silences and a dagger-like stare. In several scenes, Hulsof said little, yet his body language spoke volumes.

On opening night, the first act was slow and plodding as characters set the scene. Luckily several sparkling jokes caught the audience off guard sending explosive bursts of laughter rippling through the theatre.

Fortunately the second act picked up the pace as a heavier dose of action and intrigue set in. Was there really a murder you might ask? Well, yes, but not in the way you might think.

Ultimately as Lemoine fleshes out this elegantly wacky story, there is subtle underlying reminder to make time for family.

I Heard About Your Murder has one requirement. Just park all expectations at the door and enjoy a night of pure distilled pleasure.