FIERY PRODUCTION
Skirts on Fire is frenetic fun
Among his many talents, Stewart Lemoine has a gift for the layering of the ludicrous. This is more than evident in the Varscona Theatre’s remount of Lemoine’s 2003 play, Skirts on Fire, a literary hoax on stage until Oct. 13.
The action opens in the Sweet ’n’ Low Diner as Porter Lawrence (Ron Pederson) arrives to a secret encounter. The tables in the restaurant have short legs, and there are no chairs, just pillows, on the floor for diners. Oh, and don’t expect a menu. Just tell the waitress, whose name is naturally Shirley (Louise Lambert) what you want, and so long as it’s a butterhorn, you’re golden. Shortly thereafter, a very tall gentleman (Andrew MacDonaldSmith as the mysterious Hartwood Keane) tilts into the eatery, speaking in the affected growl of a man pretending to be someone else and wearing a ridiculous hat with a fringed wig attached to its underside.
And we’re off ! Silly careens into sillier in this 80-minute one-act, set in mid-century Manhattan, and the audience couldn’t be happier.
Quick summary (though it hardly matters). Lawrence, a teacher with modest writing credits, is approached by Keane to pen a short story to rival the one success of Keane’s reclusive career, a tale with the improbable (naturally) title of St. Margaret’s Lap, which is apparently “the most anthologized short story in the middle third of the 20th century.”
It isn’t completely obvious why. But no matter, it’s important to let go of one’s need to make sense of things in order to enjoy the rollicking scenes that soon unfold, which see each of the players in Skirts on Fire transform into a variety of characters. There’s the plucky reporter Claudia Birch (Paula Humby), hot on the trail of the hoax, who assumes a series of preposterous disguises and accents. The sassy Shirley also adopts an alternate who serves high society at a party held in the world’s smallest hotel room, complete with inedible appetizers and bottomless champagne glasses. The stern and stuffy secretary, Thetis Kipp (Kendra Connor), makes perhaps the biggest leap from tightly buttoned to boldly buxom, much to the delight of all assembled at the party.
My favourite character is jaded magazine editor Evangeline Gold (Andrea House) of The Feminine Home Digest, who glibly tosses off catchy headlines for her next issue, gems such as “Jam a Little More Into that Suitcase” or “Cuba, Who Needs It?”
Perhaps the most ludicrous proposition of the evening sees the long-limbed MacDonaldSmith and the compact Pederson pretending to be the same person with only the help of a grey
overcoat and fringed hat. Having a broad-based ensemble at your fingertips is a bonus, as ever, for Lemoine.
Don’t worry much about keeping track. It won’t surprise you to learn it all works out in the end.