Nobody Does it Better... Evelyn Strange at Teatro La Quindicina

 

I had the absolute pleasure of taking in the Opening Night of  Evelyn Strange at the Varscona Theatre as part of the 40th Anniversary Season for Teatro la Quindicina. Before the show I was lamenting to my friend the challenge of another company doing a Lemoine play in Edmonton, because even though the scripts were so good, any other company was unlikely to do it as well as Teatro would, and then this production (directed by Shannon Blanchet) proved my point brilliantly. 

Everything about the production was on point, from the costumes to the style of the acting, to the music and the lighting. It's perfectly cast with Gianna Vacirca as the mysterious title amnesiac Evelyn Strange; Oscar Derkx as her rescuer Perry Spangler who works to help her figure out who she is; Belinda Cornish as the glamourous wife of Perry's boss; and Jesse Gervais as Perry's co-worker and rumored lothario. The four of them are funny, invested, and tangled in a truly unusual way (no spoilers!) that delighted the audience as it unraveled. 

It was the kind of show that had us speculating on possibilities during the intermission (the group behind us recorded theirs on paper and we heard them checking them off after the show). Like Perry, we wanted to know the answers! We were right about some of it and wrong about other things and we simply didn't mind! 

If you want to see an engaging mystery that's a lot of fun with terrific performances and an exceedingly well-constructed script, I would definitely check this out. You will laugh and be surprised! I know I was!

Evelyn Strange runs to June 12th at the Varscona Theatre. 
Tickets range from $25-$42 depending on the performance with a Pay-What-You-Can on Wednesday, June 1st. You can purchase tickets in advance here. 

Photo Credit: Marc J. Photography