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13 actors play clerks and customers in an old-style perfume shop

She Loves Me

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A busy day in Maraczek’s Parfumerie, with Georg Nowack (Russ Farmer, downstage right) gatekeeping job applicant Amalia Balash (Ruth Wong-Miller, in cream figured dress) Photo Nanc Price Photography.

The pre-set for She Loves Me, at Théâtre Servus Credit Union (La Cité Francophone), is simple. A storefront with a bench in front of it, a backstage orchestra visible over the top. But as the stories unfold, the set (Leland Stelck) unfolds more literally, revealing the main set of a parfumerie in 1930s Budapest, and later shifting quickly to create a romantic cafe, a hospital room, and whatever else is needed. The counters, shelves, displays, and stock convey a store filled with luxuries and needs. It felt like it would be interesting to browse more closely – like going to Lush (without its overpowering mix of scents).

The show focuses on the parfumerie’s owner, Mr Maraczek (Brian Ault) and its employees (Andrew Kwan, Russ Farmer, Scott McLeod, Brendan Smith, and Christina O’Dell) along with job-applicant Amalia Balish (Ruth Wong-Miller). Like a Maeve Binchy novel, the script (Joe Masteroff) and clever direction (Melanie Lafleur) convey that all the characters have interesting stories that we want to hear more about. And not just the principal characters – the ensemble makes up a store full of recurring customers, a romantic cafe full of – romances – and other intriguing bits which I won’t tell you.

My two favourite ensemble bits of this show were “Twelve Days to Christmas” – putting a familiar retail spin on the Advent season – and the whole scene in the cafe. The cafe scene made good use of the depth of stage available to them, and with the raked auditorium seating of the Théâtre Servus, the audience could appreciate the performances upstage of the three women dining at the bar-counter and their server. Not having looked at the show program before the show started, I was surprised to see that this white-jacketed cafe server was Brendan Smith, whom I’d enjoyed on local stages since his appearance in Walterdale’s Light in the Piazza. I had been impressed by the enthusiasm and voice of the young shop delivery boy but with costuming and posture I hadn’t identified him as Smith! Other romantic couples are also enjoying drinks and dancing, and playing out their own narratives, while Amalia waits alone at a centre table for her mysterious pen-pal sweetheart. Aaron Schaan and Julia Stanski, spotted shopping together in earlier scenes, seem to have a proposal accepted. Real-life couple Trish van Doornum and Michael McDevitt are snuggling at a side table. Side flirtations are suggested in a fun dance number involving peeping from behind menu folders.

The premise of having couples meet through a newspaper Lonely Hearts Club correspondence column, getting to know each other through letters without revealing mundane life details, was updated to email for the 1998 movie You’ve Got Mail. Dating app experiences in 2023 encourage providing photos early on, so the plot-device of accidentally falling in love with a co-worker based on their text communication seems less timely, but the story is still easy to relate to.

I was pleasantly surprised at the range of sexual/romantic lives accepted among the main characters. Ilona, the woman who spends time at her lovers’ apartments (Christina O’Dell), is not vilified for it. Her co-workers as well as the audience are genuinely rooting for her to find a nice man who deserves her – or to have a nice evening at the library if that’s where she finds happiness now. Georg Nowack (Farmer) is single, so the boss assumes he must be spending his evenings at cabarets and nightclubs with a different woman every night, but no, he prefers quiet evenings at home.

I also appreciated that this story didn’t follow the trope of an independent woman being attracted to a cranky rude man despite herself, and then winning him over. Instead, Amalia is openly critical of Georg when he is being rude, only begins to appreciate him when he does something thoughtful (bringing her vanilla ice cream when she is sick), and then we see them gradually building trust and then affection over the days of a busy Christmas retail season.

White man dressed in 1930s overcoat, hat, and scarf sings joyfully.
“She Loves Me” – Russ Farmer as Georg Nowack. Photo by Nanc Price Photography

The songs and instrumental music (Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock) enhance the experience throughout. Elizabeth Raycroft directs an orchestra of 11, and the performers all have good songs for their voices. I particularly enjoyed “Vanilla Ice Cream” and “Try Me” and the harmony in “I Don’t Know His Name”.

Two women with ornately curled hair and form-fitting business wear wrap small presents while chatting.
Ruth Wong-Miller and Christina O’Dell in “I Don’t Know His Name”, She Loves Me 2023. Photo Nanc Price Photography

In 2015, Foote In The Door did She Loves Me as their first mainstage production ever. Since then, Broadway audiences have also had another chance to appreciate this musical, and there’s a cast recording of that 2016 Broadway production – I was delighted to discover that Christina O’Dell’s role of Ilona was played by Jane Krakowski of 30 Rock.

The company has been producing musicals ever since, at the Fringe as well as in their mainstage seasons. I attended opening night of that first production, so it was a treat to watch this one and recognize many familiar names of people who had been with the company from early days or who have joined Edmonton’s musical theatre community more recently. The deeper proscenium stage and more sharply raked seating at Théâtre Servus for this production supported different choices in directing and design to connect the audience intimately with the performers and allow interesting ensemble play. Costume choices for this production (Viola Park) were more subtle than in the 2015 show, with the parfumerie clerks mostly in well-fitting understated grey suits rather than plain green shopcoats, and glimpses of colour being added gradually, particularly in Amalia’s garments and accessories. As is current practice for many local companies now, some program information is displayed on a projection screen before the show starts, with the full program available via QR code. (I don’t have a good system for saving my online programs, the way I have boxes of hardcopy programs for everything from Fringe shows to Broadway.) And of course, in 2023 some of us attend the theatre wearing masks.

She Loves Me is playing Wed-Sat evenings and Sunday matinees until November 26th. Tickets are available here.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

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Kathryn Kerr, Stephen Allred, Ruth Wong-Miller, in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Photo Nanc Price.

My previous entry was about the Teatro la Quindicina quirky tongue-in-cheek period piece Evelyn Strange. And tonight I saw another quirky tongue-in-cheek period piece – Foote in the Door’s production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. This musical, by Steven Lutvak and Robert L Freedman, won several Tony awards in 2014 – I was actually in New York that spring and could have seen it, but I picked shows I’d heard of instead. And I got to see this production completely unspoiled.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is set in England in 1907. The premise of it is that Montague Navarro (Stephen Allred) discovers after his mother’s death that he’s distantly related to nobility, in fact being something like ninth in line to an earldom, although his mother had been disowned for marrying his late father, “a Castilian … and a musician!” All this information is provided by his mother’s old friend Miss Shingle (Nicole English), paying an unexpected visit. He sets out to meet his rich relations, hoping they will give him a job, but then temptation, ambition, and a series of very strange coincidences lead him to try benefiting more directly from being only a few deaths away from the title and the property.

His girlfriend Sibella (Kathryn Kerr) is a hilariously shallow and self-centred woman, but Montague doesn’t seem to mind, continuing to be captivated by her after she gets married. Meanwhile, he continues to meet various members of the D’Ysquith family, many of whom (all played by Russ Farmer) then meet untimely deaths. Most of them seem equally unlikeable, demonstrating various stereotypes about the turn-of-that-century English upper-class. The career do-gooder Hyacinth, seeking a novel charity that hasn’t been claimed by her friends and speaking of her prospective beneficiaries in appallingly patronizing terms, was particularly memorable. At intermission, I was thinking that I’d only seen one D’Ysquith who actually seemed nice, cousin Phoebe (Ruth Wong-Miller), but that maybe I should distrust that thought.

I thought I’d figured out where the rest of the plot would go … but it didn’t, exactly. And the plot twists of the second act delighted me.

My two favourite scenes were the ice-skating scene (who knew that graceful ensemble dancing – and some not so graceful wobbles by Asquith D’Ysquith Junior – behind some snowbank set pieces could so easily convey skating on a pond?) and the scene where Montague is entertaining both Sibella and Phoebe in different rooms of his apartment, The hallway set piece with the two doors, and the way Allred’s character uses it while he sings to play out wanting both women and trying to keep them away from each other, were just brilliant.

Set and lighting design were by Leland Stelck. My companions and I were impressed by how many set pieces shifted silently and rapidly behind the drapery to convey many different locations, particularly given that the production had relocated to Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre on Gateway from their original performance venue three weeks ago due to the flooding at La Cité Francophone. I think the OSPAC stage is not as deep or wide, but the ensemble of eleven never looked crowded. The lighting design must have been more challenging at OSPAC, which has a relatively low ceiling and doesn’t seem to have as many lighting instruments.

We also admired the period costumes including hairdos and hats (Betty Kolodziej). The members of the ensemble (Kelsey Voelker, Shauna Rebus, Lynnéa Bartel-Nickel, Jason Duiker, Aaron Schaan, Brian Ault) played several background characters each, changing costumes and accents as needed – my favourite ensemble bit was when they were all serving at a dinner, like in an episode of Bridgerton.

The production was directed by Ron Long, with musical direction by Daniel Belland, and an orchestra of 13. The melodies were catchy with some Gilbert-and-Sullivan-esque rhymes, and strong voices among the cast.

Advance tickets to the four remaining shows (Jun 16-18 at 7:30 and Jun 18 at 2 pm) are available here and going fast. Door sales (if available) will start 45 minutes before showtime.

If you’ve already seen it, or you don’t mind being completely spoiled, this webpage reviews (and ranks) all the deaths, as staged in the original Broadway production.

Carousel: a musical to think about

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Foote in the Door Productions has taken another big step with their latest production, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 classic Carousel.  Their first mainstage show was She Loves Me, a light workplace romance with a spunky determined shopgirl heroine.  Their second mainstage show was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying last fall, a lighthearted 1960s look at corporate-workplace problems such as sexual harassment, nepotism, and the Peter principle, with the spunky determined officegirl’s happy ending being the suburban-homemaking wife to her upwardly-mobile sweetheart Ponty.

But Carousel covers tougher material, and includes some bits that are harder for modern audiences to deal with.  This post contains spoilers.  It’s mostly set in 1917, in a small town in Maine where the men mostly fish for a living and the women have jobs too, like working in a textile mill, or working at the inn owned by Nettie (Carolyn Ware).  Protagonist Julie Jordan (Ruth Wong-Miller) and her friend Carrie Pipperidge (Natasha Mason) are millworkers, constrained to live in the millgirls’ dorm and follow chaperonage and curfew rules to keep their jobs.

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Ruth Wong-Miller, as Julie Jordan, in Foote in the Door’s production of Carousel. (Nanc Price Photography)

Contrasting with this orderly and rigid culture is the carnival life, with manager Mrs Mullin (Rebecca Bissonette), carousel barker Billy Bigelow (Russ Farmer) and assorted non-speaking midway performers.  Billy and Julie meet each other, and then linger chatting on a bench despite both of them losing their jobs for the dalliance.  The speed and inevitability of these consequences seemed unconvincing to me as a modern audience member accustomed to more workplace rights.   Julie is fired because she defies the mill owner’s offer to drive her back to the dorm before curfew and Billy is fired by the carnival manager who is jealous of whatever unspecified relationship she has with him.  Both of these firings seemed to happen before either character knew the other one well enough to judge beyond some degree of attraction – and both of them have attitudes of “nobody tells me what to do!” that cause them trouble.   And that sets in motion one of those tragic unstoppable trajectories – they’re stuck together because of losing their livelihoods and accommodations, he is unsuccessful getting work, she gets pregnant, he gets drawn into a criminal plan in order to provide for his family, etc.  Farmer’s Billy is not a classic hero at all – he’s shortsighted (gambling away the criminal takings before they even do the crime), cocky with women, and stubborn (unwilling to take work on a fishing boat), still defiant after death as a soul in the afterlife.  He’s ill-equipped for adult life, his schemes don’t work, and he kills himself rather than go to jail.  His own outcome follows directly from his bad qualities and the culture he’s in, and his afterlife redemption only comes after his second attempt to give his daughter Louise (Megan Beaupre) a better chance than he had.

The part that was most uncomfortable for me was that Billy hits Julie, and she excuses or accepts it.  The hitting took place off stage.  We learn when Julie confides in her friend, and then the other women overhear and make sure everyone knows.  Everyone who responds to Julie lets her know it’s not appropriate and she didn’t deserve it, and Carrie challenges her when she makes excuses for Billy.  So after Billy dies and we see Julie carrying on, working with her cousin Nettie to run the former inn as a boarding house and raising her daughter, I’m thinking this is the best possible solution in fiction, anyway, because I don’t want to see her getting abused on an ongoing basis and I don’t believe he could reform.  But then when the heavenly powers (Pauline Farmer and Shauna Rebus) give Billy a day on earth to take care of “unfinished business” his first attempt to reach his daughter and inspire her ends in him losing his temper and slapping her hand.  The audience, like Louise, is horrified.  Perhaps she has not been raised with violence and the cycle has been broken.  However, when Louise tells her mother about the slap that “felt like a kiss”, Julie, reminiscing, says “It is possible, dear, for someone to hit you, hit you hard and have it not hurt at all.”  Does Louise take this as her mother’s encouragement to accept relationship violence?  Is Julie at risk of accepting abuse in a future relationship?  Is the pattern doomed to continue?  I desperately want to believe all the answers are no. but after the performance ended I had to go walking in the rain by myself instead of standing around in opening-night crowds in the lobby, so I could think.  I thought about how hard it is to change abusive patterns of behaviour, and I thought about what a good job director Mary-Ellen Perley and her cast and team had done, to make me that disturbed.

More subtle commentaries on the prevailing attitudes and the patriarchal culture come from Julie’s friend Carrie.  It’s clear that she’s marrying for love as well as marrying up, when she introduces her fiance Mr. Enoch Snow (Rory Turner).  He’s full of plans for expanding his fleet of fishing boats and expanding his household to include a wife and many children.  She’s thrilled with her handsome beau, but he’s quick to judge her as unvirtuous when he surprises her with scoundrel Jigger Craigin (Morgan Smith), without hearing her side or considering her character of naive kind enthusiasm.  And in the 1945 scenes at the end, she tells Julie “If I had more sense I wouldn’t have had nine children.”  Natasha Mason’s Carrie is a gentle reminder that the “proper” path for women in that town was also lacking in autonomy and flawed by modern ideals.

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Natasha Mason, as Carrie, in Foote in the Door’s production of Carousel (Nanc Price Photography)

Foote in the Door is partnering with WIN House, the local domestic abuse shelter.  Brochures with information on the issue and the organization are available at the show, and donations are solicited from the audience afterwards.

My favourite songs in this production were Nettie singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, and Billy’s “The Highest Judge of All” which had a particularly interesting orchestral accompaniment.

Foote in the Door has also taken a practical step with this production, across the street from the auditorium of Faculté St-Jean to the bigger stage of L’UniThéâtre at La Cité.  This facility gives them better lighting options, and the space for a fifteen piece orchestra as well as a large active ensemble.  Carousel runs this weekend and next week, closing Saturday June 24th.  Advance tickets are available through Tix on the Square, same-day and weekend tickets at the door until they sell out.