The farce is strong with this one

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This article was published 01/04/2016 (3715 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is rare to see actors “break” — that is, get a case of unscripted giggles — on the professional local stage.

It happened at the midway point of the RMTC production Unnecessary Farce on Thursday night during a scene in which an unconscious body is being stashed in a bathroom. It was a forgivable hiccup given that Paul Slade Smith’s comedy is a formidable laugh generator. Even actors may prove susceptible.

Of course, breaking also carries a risk of interrupting the crucial rhythm and pace of the farce. After all, the plot is so silly, you don’t want to give the audience too much time to think about it during the show’s brisk two-hour running time (including a 15-minute intermission).

Our story is set in two adjoining hotel rooms, one a mirror image of the other. (Even the dreary wall paintings are the same.) In the room on the right, the abnormally lovely accountant Karen Brown (Ava Darrach-Gagnon) is preparing to meet the seemingly benign Mayor Meekly (John B. Lowe) on the topic of a missing $16 million in the city budget. In the room on the left are a pair of cops of dubious competence. Billie Dwyer (Heather Russell) is as ambitious as she is green. The comparatively serious cop Eric Sheridan (Tom Keenan) is somewhat compromised by having spent a sexually electric but frustratingly unconsummated night with Karen.

It’s the cops’ job to videotape the meeting of the mayor and the accountant to get the goods on the politician for presumed malfeasance.

Of course, nothing goes according to plan. Things start to unravel with the introduction of the mayor’s security detail Agent Frank (Paul Essiembre). His freshly pressed exterior suggests he’s a courageous, competent, can-do cop. Suffice it to say: appearances can be deceptive.

Added to this melange: Mayor Meekly’s congenial wife Mary (Megan McCarton) and a Scottish hitman named Todd (Arne MacPherson) who employs bagpipes in the same way Samuel L. Jackson’s assassin Jules invoked Bible verse in Pulp Fiction: to terrorize his victims before killing them.

Advantage: bagpipes.

Farce is oft-maligned and undervalued, but it’s a notoriously tricky comedy genre to do well. Every cue, every door slam and every wardrobe malfunction has to be timed meticulously, without impeding on the comedic flow. Director Steven Schipper manages that task nicely, orchestrating the chaos with precision, but with enough organic wiggle room to let the laughs fall where they may.

Fall, they do. As officer Billie, Russell emerges as one of the show’s most reliable comedians. She can get the most out of a line, but those expressive eyes come in handy when her character is bound and gagged. As a hitman whose brogue thickens concurrently with his rising anger, MacPherson is, to employ the Scottish term, a hoot.

As the designated romantic couple, Darrach-Gagnon and Keenan make the most of their mismatched physicality: her curvy lollapalooza next to his skinny-legged dweeb might make for an odd wedding photo, but in the context of the comedy, it’s a match made in farce heaven.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing