2 stars
Stage 44, Rutherford School
This meandering parody-homage to the work of film director Alfred Hitchcock has the laboured feel of an overly long school assembly skit.
It isn’t a good sign when we start with an apparently serious discussion about whether one of the three members of this Los Angeles-based “vaudeville-nouveau” troupe should wear his non-period glasses. Who cares, in a show where one character suggested by the audience is a young man who thinks he’s a hamster?
The loose plot involves the Hitchcockian trope of an innocent man trying to clear his name, an excuse for puns, accents, mentions of every movie from Rear Window to Strangers on a Train to North By Northwest, and constant asides to the audience.
However, the jokes often aren’t clever. One scene is set in the “Hedren Auction House, Everywhere Else is for The Birds,” a reference to The Birds star Tippi Hedren, while the Cary Grant-inspired lead fights the villain with what he calls “judo, judo, judo.”
Video is used well, particularly the opening sequence when a montage of Hitchcock faces and voices from his TV show is projected o to the head of a cast member to make it look as if the master has come back to life.
There is also a good bit with dialogue mangled by Autocorrect that takes place during a car ride with 1950s street scenes visible through the back window.
But the effects were repeatedly marred by technical problems and missed cues. It’s enough to drive you Psycho.
Gordon Kent
Venue: BYOV 44: Rutherford School
Sound & Fury
Good Evening. Tonight’s play is a ‘Spine-Tickling’ tale of comic suspense by Fringe favorites Sound &Fury, who make their return to Edmonton, and our suspicion is you’ll be spellbound by their notorious psycho comedy!
[5 STARS] “Jaw-aching hilarity!”–Winnipeg Free Press
[5 STARS] “Naturally & effortlessly hysterical!”–Edinburgh Evening News
75 Minutes
