Six doors, obnoxious bellhops, and barbiturate overdoses: welcome to the zany world of farce, this time around brought to you by the Canadian College of Performing Arts’ Company C. The performance in question is Lend Me a Tenor, originally written by playwright Ken Ludwig, here brought to life again by director Julie McIsaac, herself a grad from the Canadian College of Performing Arts.
“It’s a classic farce; I think it’s one of the best modern farces. There’s a bunch of mistaken identities, there are women pursuing the wrong man,” laughs McIsaac.
The play, which takes place in Cleveland in the mid ’30s, is set around the mishaps of a large opera company who have flown in a world-famous tenor for a gala fundraiser. Through a series of confusing incidents, he ends up overdosing on barbiturates and passing out, mistaken for dead. Then the fun begins.
“So it’s a classic ‘the show must go on’,” says McIsaac. “The assistant to the general manager of the company has to step up and fill the role and put on a costume and go out there. He ends up being quite good, so people really do mistake him for the real guy, and that’s where all the mistaken identity ensues. There are six doors on the set, so they’re constantly coming in and out and slamming the doors, and it’s quite fast-paced and funny. We’re having a good time.”
Sounds like a good time; also sounds like an episode of Three’s Company.
“Exactly,” says McIsaac. “It’s very sitcom-esque at moments.”
That sitcom vibe is just part of the reason why McIsaac feels that farce can still appeal to college-aged people today.
“It’s just delightful, there’s just an energy to it that’s really appealing,” she says. “It has a life force of its own. We always see it happening when we get into the second act of the piece. You’ve taken care of the exposition and all the pieces are in place, and you just need to knock down that first domino, then everything just happens.”
And everything happens with great timing thanks to, according to McIsaac, the training of the students involved in the play.
“These students have great training, they’re very musical, and they’ve got training in dance and choreography as well, so they’re very really adept at assimilating rhythmic elements of the farce, and the physical elements, the physical comedy, because they’re very much used to working in that musical way with phrasing and rhythm and that sort of thing.”
And who exactly are the students involved? They’re from a two-year training program in performing arts at the Canadian College of Performing Arts, where students get trained in dance, singing, acting, and other aspects of production and career management, McIsaac explains. Company C is the final part of that program.
“Company C is a third-year program, just half the year, and opposed to taking classes, they become theatre companies and produce three shows back to back. They also market them, build the sets, and sew the costumes, and also perform in them. So they’re the cast and producing company at the same time.”
Lend Me a Tenor
7:30 pm Friday, October 4
2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday, October 5
2 pm Sunday, October 6
$7.50 student rush tickets at the door/$15 in advance
CCP Performance Hall, 1701 Elgin Road
ccpacanada.eventbrite.ca