Saint Albert happily haunts St. Albert

“Is it possible the dead are haunted by the living?” asks one of the characters in Teatro La Quindicina’s world premiere of Saint Albert now running at Backstage Theatre.

It’s a profound question and completely a matter of perspective depending on whatever side of the fence you are on.

Teatro artist director and in-house playwright Stewart Lemoine transports us clean off the map and jumps into a rabbit hole that intersects faith, science, poetry, magic, music and real estate.

What is most striking about this fable is its originality. There’s a certain craziness to his elegant style, a method to his madness.

The best way to describe this playful work is that it’s similar to an art installation of seemingly random interlocking pieces that somehow fit like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

As a veritable laboratory of oddball ideas, Saint Albert is a love letter to Albertus Magnus, more commonly known around town as Saint Albert the Great, patron of scientists.

For decades locals mistakenly assumed the city was named after Albertus Magnus, when in fact its moniker comes from a less notable figure, Saint Albert of Louvain, a man murdered in early life during a period of political-religious turf wars.

This once-upon-a-time production hinges on Magnus’ unexpected appearance at a St. Albert McMansion, a luxury home that has been on the market for seven years.

Realtor Sheila Haynes is eager to crack a deal. But there two strikes against a sale. Almost no one can afford the $5.5 million palatial digs except possibly Desi Haynes, a European pop star arriving for 24-hour stretch to give it a view.

And there’s Magnus, a kooky, disoriented man that is mysteriously squatting at the six-car garage mansion and cannot physically leave the house. With this nutter prancing around, the deal of lifetime could go south.

The three actors are a winsome bunch of misfits and the comic weight is distributed equally. Briana Buckmaster’s Sheila is a sharp shooter and displays a flamboyant geniality that is immediately endearing.

In one of her best St. Albert-isms she goes to the Enjoy Centre to buy muffins. When asked how it was, she replies in a deadpan voice, “There was no one there.”

Jeff Haslam delivers a nuanced performance as Magnus, a man used to quiet contemplation hurtled through time into a world of loud noises and discordant music.

He grows swiftly from a quivering, befuddled individual rattled by doorbells to his full height of academic wisdom as one of the world’s great thinker-philosopher-physicists.

Haslam delightfully delivers numerous weighty lines such as “in each of us resides a governing intelligence, a manifestation of the universal one,” with perfect equilibrium.

And Rachel Bowron completes the comedic triptych as Desi, a soul-eyed beauty with a voice to match. Yet underneath her gypsy hoop earrings and pop-star designer clothes rocks the intellect of a graduate from the London School of Economics.

Bowron imitates all the right celebrity moves and gives Desi a cheerful, intelligent quality that not only keeps her in synch with Magnus, but also makes her his equal.

The characters become quite familiar with each other yet Lemoine, as the director, manages to create theatrical ambiguity with elegant delicacy.

Ultimately Saint Albert is less about buying a big house than about truth, identity and how people choose to remember the past.

Oh, and I should mention there is a surprise twist at the end that completes the mystery. Saint Albert is slightly irreverent, just enough to get the giggles going, and is wrapped with a gentle self-deprecating humour not to be missed.