A ROCKY NIGHT FOR HIS NIBS
Written and directed by Stewart Lemoine. Starring Cathy Derkach, Jeff Haslam, Sheri Somerville, Davina Stewart, and many more. Varscona Theatre (10329-83 Ave). To July 26 (7:30pm). Tickets available at the Varscona box office (433-3399, mailbox #1)

The grand and historic (although overpriced and uncomfortable) Prince of Wales Hotel has been bought by the eccentric Swiss émigré Helene Catafalque, who comes up with an ingenious plan to stop guests from complaining. Raise the standard of service and lower prices? No! Simply refuse to open the doors, keep the guests occupied outside, and make sure they get what they really need. Add a few faithful servants, some disaffected Hutterites, and a pack of zany and duplicitous guests, and you have a rocky night ahead of you. 

Stewart Lemoine is one of our leading local playwrights, especially when it comes to comedies. His plays are a staple of Edmonton theatre and always seem to be playing to packed houses. A Rocky Night for His Nibs, Lemoine’s latest offering at the Varscona Theatre, is no exception. Ridiculous, moderately insane, and funny as hell, Lemoine has what is, mostly, a winner on his hands. 

True to the spirit of farce, Lemoine’s script pairs the improbable with the extremely complicated. Lorraine Merriweather (Leona Brausen) comes to the hotel for some relaxation while her husband is supposedly on a business trip to Edmonton. (Edmonton and Calgary jokes run thick as bad blood in this story.) However, Hugh Merriweather (Jeff Haslam) is meeting his girlfriend (Jana O’Connor) for a week at the same hotel. Berta and Jakob (Shannon Blanchet and Andrew MacDonald-Smith), two Hutterites delivering a box of chickens, break up and begin the adventure of living away from the colony. Donna (Sheri Somerville) emerges from the lake and tries to start a new life on this side of the border. And all of them wind up in a state of confusion when Madame Catafalque (Cathy Derkach) and the very persuasive Tristan (Mat Busby) refuse to open the hotel.

Confused yet? I needed to draw a chart at intermission. 

Although the cast is huge (12 people on the stage of the Varscona is a little on the crowded side), there isn’t a weak link among them. One of the challenges that Lemoine gives to actors is the exaggerated nature of his characters. They are, as Madame Catafalque says of herself, people who “embrace every random happenstance with profound conviction.” It would be easy for these characters to slip into caricature, but Lemoine’s cast rescues them from that fate by meeting their conviction with commitment. 

Derkach and Busby are hysterical as the off-centre and manipulative but very kind hotelier and employee. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Blanchet and MacDonald-Smith’s reserved but wry Hutterites also shine, having many of the funniest lines and bits of stage business. Brausen’s frustrated upper-middle class housewife is endearing, honest, and funny, earning long bouts of applause during several scenes. Even the underused “straight men,” like Briana Buckmaster and Mark Meer as the camera-happy Claire and the empathetic cabbie Duncan, steal the occasional scene with their comic timing and deadpan delivery.

However, not all is exactly as it should be. Farce is one of the hardest styles of comedy to perform, not to mention write. Not only do you need impeccable timing, but all the characters must be necessary to the plot and come to some, preferably unexpected, resolution. Sadly, Lemoine’s carefully crafted script falls apart in the last 10 minutes or so; it feels abrupt and rushed, as if he didn’t quite know how to end it otherwise, with no real resolution or sense of inevitability. And, even sadder, Somerville (one of the only people I will actually call a diva) is underused—her character has no real function in the story, not even as an incidental plot point. 

These reservations aside, A Rocky Night for His Nibs is truly funny and very well acted. With jokes ranging from the macabre (“Like Virginia Woolf in that movie?” “Like Virginia Woolf in that river”) to the sublime and a cast that makes it a pleasure to watch, this is one vacation that everyone should take.