A Pick-Me-Up Kind of a Show! Caribbean Muskrat at Teatro La Quindicina

I must admit, going to the theatre is starting to feel closer to normal... sure, there's the masks and if you're lucky a little bit of spacing, but in the past month and a half in addition to rehearsing the show I am directing, I have been able to catch 3 plays and my first ever evening of Die Nasty! Not quite my pre-pandemic pace, but a huge upswing and it really feels good. 

Photo Credit: Epic Photography; featuring Rochelle Laplante, Rachel Bowron & Jackson Card

It certainly helps that two of the shows (along with Die Nasty) have been comedies! Most recently I caught the Opening Night of Teatro La Quindicina's first offering in their 40th Anniversary season, Caribbean Muskrat, penned by Josh Dean and Stewart Lemoine. Lemoine also directed. I took in the show with Ephemeral Pleasures and we both delighted in the lightness of the humour created by coincidence, taboo attractions, sleep disorders and a very unusual prize (the titular Caribbean Muskrat) being held by a too-diligent Customs Agent. 

The cast of three, Cynthia Lodgepole (A driven Café hostess charmingly played by Rachel Bowron), her well-managed boyfriend Hadrien Burch (newcomer Jackson Card who is believable as the sleep disorder doctor who goes with the flow of whatever is asked of him), and the aforementioned Customs Agent, Bess Wesley (Rochelle Laplante, seen previously in Freewill's Macbeth and the Citadel's Peter Pan Gone Wrong). The three of them become entangled in attraction and friendship as the fate of the Carribean Muskrat is determined. Hopefully you can tell from this description that the show has a wonderful sense of silliness. It's situationally funny and the excellent banter of the trio carries the piece. 

The show has many of the trademarks of a Teatro show - quick dialogue, a terrific food and wine aesthetic, a sense of place (Kelowna, now or in the near future), complicating coincidences and an inevitable, yet still a little surprising, unravelling of complications. There's also a very clever and terrifically funny section where Bowron has a Bluetooth conversation with the Café staff while having brunch with the other two characters. The whole show is like the bubbles in a cold glass of prosecco - sparkling and fresh!

It's a wonderful show in it's lightness of topic after the heaviness of the last two years. There are no grand social issues being argued or weighed and that's okay. I know I left the theatre feeling a little weight lifted off my shoulders in the way that guiltfree laughter can do. 

Tickets are $37-$42 and are available here: https://tickets.teatroq.com/purchase/tickets 

There are also Pay-What-You-Can performances and you can find the information here

Oh and for your reference, here is a Caribbean muskrat:






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