The Liars is shameless fun

That special thing called friendship is a tenuous thing. The rapport can forge unbreakable bonds that last a lifetime. Or if the camaraderie is based on half-truths, it collapses under the weight of deception.

In Shadow Theatre’s production of The Liars, Edmonton playwright Jocelyn Ahlf places two women’s rather bizarre friendship under the eye of a microscope and dissects it with intelligence and a sharp wit.

Within the play’s first five minutes, the naïve Audrey (Lora Brovold) and self-destructive Gaby (Shannon Blanchet) meet for dinner with their significant others. As they greet each other with forced screams of fake delight, you know the relationship is doomed. It’s just a matter of time before the destruction goes into freefall.

Gaby and Audrey are best friends with a 12-year history that goes back to their college days. But the kicker is they dislike each other and are co-dependants in a sick friendship.

Gaby and her jock boyfriend Adam (David MacInnis) invite Audrey and her acerbic fiancé Simon (Andrew MacDonald-Smith) for dinner. Audrey and Simon are dreading the evening and bring with them a mellowing bottle of wine and panicky prearranged hand signals for leaving.

Blanchet’s Gaby is the scene-stealer, the gal with the crazy horselaugh that always tells these improbable stories. Described as a “freak magnet,” Gaby’s latest acquisition is Adam, a cop with a short fuse and still shorter vocabulary.

While the bickering couple’s relationship is explosively sex-based, Audrey and Simon deal with each other on a more even keel. Although Audrey revels in dishing out advice to Gaby, Simon is wary of Gaby’s self-victimized tall tales. “She’s like a dog. Pet her and she’ll follow you anywhere,” he points out.

Director John Hudson keeps the pace moving quickly and makes sure the comic weight is equally distributed among the four characters. One of the more delightful scenes occurs during dinner when the gals head off to the kitchen leaving the two men at the table.

Adam folds his arms and sits there staring at the palm-sweating Simon who looks as if he’d like to vanish into an abyss. The silence between them just roars with awkwardness. It is such a relatable moment.

MacDonald-Smith has the gift of enduring eloquence with the simple lift of an eyebrow or simple shoulder shrug. And McInnis’ turns Adam into such a delightful lunk-head, a man totally oblivious to subtler emotions in life.

And while all eyes are on the wacko Gaby and Blanchet delivers on this larger-than-life nut job, this two-hour farce is really about Audrey’s awakening, something Brovold reveals with the deft hand of comedic grace.

All in all, The Liars is a fast-paced, gratifying romp of shameless fun that runs until June 13.