Mother-daughter duo behind book for new musical

West End

North End

Winnipeg

There’s still time to catch The Perfect Man, a musical written by Sara and Reena Kreindler and developed with support of the Manitoban Association of Playwrights, during its run at the Gargoyle Theatre on Ellice Avenue.

Featuring a cast of local musical theatre performers, The Perfect Man is a high-energy romantic comedy in the tradition of vintage Broadway shows. It opened on May 6 and continues until May 17.

“I’m so happy and proud that the Gargoyle Theatre (is) the first home to this show,” said Andrew Davidson, artistic director and owner of the Gargoyle. “I believe it is so good (that) it deserves future productions in other places. People who come to see this will be able to say one day that, ‘I was at the world premiere run.’”

“It’s a fun evening, a rom-com with some cultural satire of what reality dating shows say about the culture we’re in, that consumerist and performative aspect of relationships that we’re bombarded with, especially in the era of social media,” said Sara Kreindler, who wrote the music, lyrics, and co-wrote the book with her mother, Reena.

“Our lives are all carried out in front of so many observers. Even though ‘vulnerability’ and ‘authenticity’ are buzzwords in this, everything in the context of it is against that. So how do you really find love and authenticity when we’re marinating in an environment that is hostile to it?”

Co-produced by the Gargoyle Players and Winnipeg Studio Theatre, and directed by award-winning theatre veteran Sharon Bajer, The Perfect Man features Carlyn Graff-Czehryn as Anita, an anthropologist who is researching a reality dating show only to discover she is actually a contestant, while Reid McTavish stars as eponymous Perfect Man Clayton.

“We are blessed with the talent on our stage. This cast really is eight of the best performers in Winnipeg, and Sharon is an unbelievable talent. It’s a top-notch team across the board,” Davidson said.

“It is so interesting working with this big team. Most of our experience is in community theatre, where you are in every role. So seeing how this all fits together has been amazing,” said Sara Kreindler, who has a PhD in social psychology and lives in the West End. “It is so intense, I am just in awe of what people can do in that time period.”

The music itself is a throwback to “vintage Broadway,” providing a pastiche of old styles while the lyrics satirize stereotypical and archaic ideas about gender roles and expectations.

“The pastiche style is conducive, the old-fashioned idioms work so well, because when you hear them, you’re thinking of a sentimental, pure-hearted idealized era, but with content which is often hyper-modern or thinks it is embodying those ideals, but is really very cynical and twisted,” Reena Kreindler said. “Satire works with incongruities, and Sara has a real talent for setting those up.”

“It’s pointing out this juxtaposition of what we think of as modern,” Sara added. “Also, I happen to love that type of music, it’s very melodic and tuneful, hummable and fun.”

Sara Kreindler also wrote Larry Saves the Canadian Health Care System, a research-based satirical musical tackling fundamental health policy issues, that was slated to debut with the Gargoyle Players, but pivoted to a web-based series during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. While The Perfect Man isn’t the first time the Kreindlers have worked together, it does mark their first professional theatre debut, after collaborating on a number of Fringe Festival productions over the years, with Sara writing scripts and Reena directing.

“It’s always been that way, through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, so whenever I had something I was working on, I would bring it to mom,” Sara said. “In this case, it started off the same way. At a certain point, sometimes she was rewriting entire scenes, so it crossed the line from feedback to co-writing.”

“Sara gives me a great deal of credit, but I see my role primarily as editor,” added Reena, a North End resident. “We’ve worked together, she brings things to me and maybe I’ll put a finer point on a piece of dialogue or help reconstruct a scene. We’ve always worked together. It’s a labour of love and a tremendous privilege.”

Kreindler credits growing up in a “musical and creative” household in fostering her love of the theatre, something that Reena in particular encouraged from early on.

“She took me to see my first musical when I was four, Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado,” Sara said. “It’s all these high stakes threats, like everybody’s going to get their heads chopped off, but you know nobody is going to really get hurt. It’s funny in that its transgressive for a four year old.”

“I had accompanied The Mikado in high school, so I got a copy of it and played it and explained this convoluted story,” Reena recalled.

“Then of course I wanted to make my own, so I would make all my stuffed animals sing all these operettas in super high soprano voices,” Sara said. “Mom was always so tolerant of all this.”

Visit thegargoyletheatre.com for more information.