Young Frankenstein coming to Kelowna QUICKHIT
Just when you thought it was safe to say ‘Walk This Way’ without cracking up, it’s baa-a-ack! Will the one-liners never end? Probably not, but that’s OK with anyone who has even the merest excuse for a funny-bone.
It’s the classic spoof of spoofs, Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, the musical version.
A howling with laughter onscreen success from a few decades ago, the musical version hit Broadway and, in addition to three Tony Award nominations, won a Grammy for best musical, Young Frankenstein demands that you suspend belief and just plain sit down and enjoy the zany antics on stage.
Directed by Randy Leslie, cofounder of Kelowna Actors Studio, the show boasts the de rigueur dancing monster, eye-popping special effects and show stopping musical numbers with a (sort-of) cast of thousands.
Based on a screenplay by Hollywood cut-ups Gene Wilder and Brooks, Young Frankenstein tells the story of brilliant young New York-living Dr. Frederick von Fronkensteen, desperate to escape the mad scientist legacy of his family name linked to an infamous castle in Transylvania (clap of thunder).
But circumstances, like a huge inheritance, draw him back to the family castle (clap of thunder, flashes of lightning) where the What: Mel Brooks’Young Frankenstein, the Musical, presented by Kelowna Actors Studio.
When: Oct. 10 – 28 with evening and matinee performances.
Where: Kelowna Actors Studio, 1379 Ellis Street, Kelowna
Tickets: Available as dinner and show or show only at Kelowna Tickets, 250-862-2867, in-person at #100-2600 Enterprise Way (across from WalMart) or www.KelownaActorsStudio.com
infamy began.
Knock-knock-knock on the castle door, and Voila! the hilarity begins, with a creaky door and a ‘hello’ from Igor the Hunchback (Mark Sorestad).
Sorestad has been involved with Actors Studio since 2004 when he came to the stage in the drama On Golden Pond, but after catching the musical in Seattle “it knocked me on my butt”, Igor was on the list of “dream roles.”
“KAS has a stable of good performers and actors, so I didn’t expect to get this,” he noted. “It’s more comedic than anything I’ve done, with great lines, dance numbers and songs,” he said.
“It’s Mel Brooks style of comedy, so there’s very little not to like about it,” he added. “There’s lots of bawdy humor, slapstick and vaudeville-style humour. It’s also a very technical show, with no going off-script” as much of the humour relies on lines to cue the sound, light and pyrotechnic effects.
The audience shouldn’t be surprised to find the show includes a village idiot (Kirk Holland), freakishly-spooked neighing horses, a monster-gone-wrong searching for love and some other stuff.
If having too much fun during rehearsals is any measure of what awaits the audience, then let it be so, according to Eva Cortens who takes on the role of Frau Blucher and brings to the stage a nicely affected low-German accent.
Spoiler alert: (not to be confused with a presidential alert) its her exaggerated pronunciation of her name that spooks horses.
“I’ve been working on the German accent,” she said, “it’s a challenge to keep that accent throughout the show .. .but I’m doing it. I loved the movie, grew up with it, and it’s fun being in Cloris Leachman’s shoes,” she added. “We all interject our own personality into the part, but it’s patterned after the classic.”
“This is a classic, it strays a little from the movie. Some bits added, some lines are different, but those one-liners are there and it’s pretty obvious humour — I mean we’re talking definitively not high-brow stuff. But hilarious.”
Part of the fun of being in what she calls “a big variety-like show” is having a chance to flesh out the characters, polish the parts and bring the Mel Brook-ness to life on stage.
An actors studio favourite, Alexandra Holowaty, steps up to the role of Inga, a saucy young assistant deep in the bowels of the Frankenstein castle.
“I’m the sexy lab assistant, a kinda cool character, a smart girl who flips back and forth from being a sexpot to ‘blonde’,” she explained. “Once we all got into costumes and wigs, the characters really blossomed. Inga is full of life and very, very happy all of the time; that’s a challenge.”
Currently a Gr. 12 student in the Kelowna Actors Studio Academy, Holowaty plans to take her acting to the next level following graduation.
Meanwhile, she continues to enjoy her stage work with KAS, and sees the upcoming show as a cast collection of “goofy, full of energy” actors who are handling the non-stop one-liners with ease.
“The jokes are classic, but it feels fresh every time we do it (in rehearsal). We’re getting the flow of it down, we’re making sure the comedic timing is spot-on, and it changes depending whether you put the emphasis here…or next time…there,” she added.
Regardless, the rowdy, adultsonly raunchy romp, puts the stamp of authenticity on a Brooks creation, and is guaranteed to kick-start the fall season for Actors Studio.
And a rousing one not to be missed if you’re looking for a laugh-fest to ease you out of summer.
Please, walk this way.