<b>✭✭✭✭✩</b><b>
</b><b>by Rebecca Northan & Bruce Horak, directed by Rebecca Northan
Tarragon Theatre & Vertigo Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
September 27-October 29, 2017
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“The Joy of Spontaneous Theatre”
The Tarragon Theatre opened its 2017/18 season with Rebecca Northan’s hotly anticipated follow-up to her international hit <i><a href="perma://BLPageReference/C7874E34-A420-4355-89DC-37F3D82C4037">Blind Date</a></i> (2009). Her new improvised show <i>Undercover</i>, co-written with Bruce Horak, also requires a chosen audience member to join in creating a play on stage, but <i>Undercover</i> has a more complex set-up than <i>Blind Date</i> and requires a cast of six playing doubled roles rather than simply the lonely French clown Mimi of <i>Blind Date</i>. Of the two there’s no doubt that <i>Blind Date</i> is the funnier show simply because embarrassment and sexual tension are funnier and more universal than the artifice of an improvised murder mystery. Nevertheless, <i>Undercover</i> is still a hoot and very cleverly constructed so that the chosen audience member receives our empathy and never our ridicule.
In <i>Blind Date</i>, Northan would scout likely candidates for Mimi’s date while mingling with patrons waiting to see the show. In <i>Undercover</i>, where the audience member has to participate in a more complex scenario, interested ticket holders are invited to sign up to be in the show with actors playing police recruitment officers in the lobby. Northan then chooses one of those on the list to join her cast on stage.
The premise of the show is that we will follow the life of the newly recruited rookie policeman on his or her first day on the job. There are two briefings. In one Northan as Sergeant Roberta Collins and sans red nose introduces the rookie to the rest of her team. In the second Northan as herself takes the rookie to the “safe area” on stage left where she briefs the rookie on the rules of playing the role on stage. She mentions that there will be doubling so that if an actor changes in outfit, look and name s/he is meant to be a different character. She also assures the rookie can ask for for a time-out whenever necessary and that the whole cast is there to back up the the newbie’s performance. This is very important and distinguishes Northan’s type of improvised theatre from others found in comedy clubs where often the point of inviting audience members on stage is to embarrass them. Here the audience member is meant to be the hero of the show and everyone on stage is there to help.
The rookie’s first assignment is to infiltrate an art auction at a swanky estate in Toronto. The rookie has an invitation to the event from Peter Viner (Bruce Horak), the policeman’s contact inside the estate. The rookie is wired for sound so that the police can listen in on any private conversations the guests are having should s/he be within a three-foot radius of the interlocutors. The rookie is especially ordered to watch the movements of Lia Da Costa (Christy Bruce) closely, since she has known connections with the mob. The rookie is also to search the premises for clues whenever the coast is clear.
It is a dark and stormy night, really, with thunder and lighting flashes that threaten the power and music hinting at danger and suspense by Mike Rinaldi. Once at the Viner mansion, the rookie has to confront other issues not mentioned in the briefing. Peter may be friendly enough to the rookie, but it is clear he his having marital difficulties with his wife Georgie (Rebecca Northan). Georgie’s cousin Brook Pounsbury (Terra Hazelton) freely gossips about this and and city councillor Graeme Nelson (Dennis Cahill) seems to be a little too close to Georgie just to be friends as he claims. And who exactly is Daniel Murphy (Jamie Northan) who tends the bar and lives on the estate? Once the haughty Lia arrives, Georgie begins the auction. There’s lightening. The lights go out. When they come up again, there’s a body on the floor. Will the rookie be able to interrogate all the suspects (i.e. everyone in the house) incisively and gather enough evidence to make an arrest? Only the time spent in the second act will tell.
Whom the rookie interviews and when is entirely determined by the rookie though Northan in the guise of the Roberta is there to give helpful hints. Though improvised, Northan and Horak have so cleverly written the scenario that as in any good mystery the plot becomes more complex as it goes along. After every new development Roberta checks in with the rookie to find out how each new piece of information has affected the investigation. Thus, rather than a test of an audience member’s romantic abilities as in <i>Blind Date</i>, <i>Undercover</i> tests the member’s abilities at gathering and processing information or “ratiocination” as Edgar Allen Poe called it in his Auguste Dupin mysteries.
While <i>Blind Date</i> involved only a relationship between two people, <i>Undercover</i> involves the audience member to observe and speak to many others. Similarly, the set for Undercover is far more complex. Glenn Davidson has cleverly composed the set of two three-sided structures that can be turned to represent the police station as well as several rooms in the Viner mansion. Not only that but built into the set are those standard features of old-fashioned mysteries – ingenious secret compartments, safes and hidden passages.
As Roberta, Northan has a wonderful irony in her voice that basically functions as a wink to the audience whenever she has a supportive conversation with the rookie. She completely distinguishes the tough cop from the flighty Georgie. The rest of the cast work as a tight ensemble easily playing off the responses of the rookie while also attempting subtly to move the plot forward.
Fans of improv and of old-fashioned British-style mysteries will fall head over heels for this show though the latter group will have to stifle any urge to call out helpful hints. The rookie is the audience’s representative on stage and we have to watch in suspense to see how s/he will manage the investigation. In <i>Undercover</i>, Northan and Horak have created a unique form of comedy, “spontaneous theatre’, as Northan calls it, that will still have you smiling and chuckling days later. Since every show is different depending on the rookie, you’ll certainly want to see it more than once.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Rebecca Northan as Georgie, Terra Hazelton as Brook, Christy Bruce as Lia, audience member, Jamie Northan as Daniel, Dennis Cahill as Graeme and Bruce Horak as Peter; Rebecca Northan as Roberta. ©2017 Little Blue Lemon, Inc.Theatre Aquarius.
For tickets, visit <a href="http://www.tarragontheatre.com">www.tarragontheatre.com</a>.
<b>2017-09-28</b>
<b>Undercover</b>