08 June 2010

Importing Canadian Funny Stuff: The Long Weekend

Norm Foster is a prolific Canadian playwright, according to Wikipedia. The playbill said that BST had done one of his plays a few years ago but I couldn't remember which one. I gather they are all fairly similar. Light and funny, usually about ordinary people and their problems, capable of being done well by amateur companies, seems a reasonable summary.

The Long Weekend is playing at Billings Studio Theatre with four of our best actors, Bobbi Hawk, Vincent Ray, Vint Lavender and Lisa Halpin They play individually well and especially well with each other. The first act makes fun of a variety of young and not so young urban professional stereotypes and the second act does the same, with a few predictable changes, and it ends by making fun of the audience as well. It reminded me of an academic playwright given the assignment of doing an extended version of a Seinfeld episode, which was suggested by Jaci Webb in a recent Gazette review. There are a lot of good laughs and many smiles.

It is playing Thursday through Sunday this week and Thursday through Saturday night next week. Go see it.

3 comments:

Lady Penelope said...

Hello there, I'm a newbie on here, but if Wikipedia said it, I'm sure the playwright is great.
I followed the link just to check it out....Love the billboard which proclaim 'really funny stuff' smacks of trying too hard.
Based in England I can't see the play but from your description I'm missing a great evening out...

Ken & Carol said...

My dear Lady P:

Thanks very much for your comment. Feel free to tell me what you think. Re Wiki's comment on Foster: I got the impression that the contributor did not think Mr Foster was great, just prolific and apparently, very successful. We are blessed with a couple of amateur companies, a surprising number for a town of 100K.

The local reviewer said Foster has been likened to our Neil Simon but I think he is closer to your Alan Ayckbourn, (72 plays, my goodness!)in particular, I think of How the Other Half Loves, which might be similar to Foster's The Long Weekend.

Ken & Carol said...

Or The Norman Conquests.

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