THEY’RE SWINGIN’
Are you ready to kiss the cod? You can if you buy a glass of screech and join the folks who stay for the Cod Kissin’ ceremony after “Swingin’ in St. John’s.” It’s all part of the fun.
Call it the little show that could. It certainly has potential. After winning an award at last year’s Hamilton Fringe, this frisky little concoction by Will Gillespie, originally from South Porcupine, Ont., but now a proud Hamiltonian, is a hoot and a holler, as my grandma used to say.
Is it a fully polished production ready to take on the world? Uh, that would probably be a no. But it’s not as crazy a notion as you might think.
A few things could straighten it out. And let me say right now I had fun with Gillespie’s skewed vision of a stage musical, based on a non-existing Elvis film. In many ways it’s just as cheesy as “Blue Hawaii” or “Roustabout.” Neither was Academy Award material.
There are some snappy lines here to keep you laughing, as well as the gestation of some decent performances. On the negative side there’s some rough and ready staging that would benefit from better direction and choreography.
Major asset is the game cast. Even if they sing a little too tentatively, sometimes dance with flat feet, they are plucky. Even when forced to do a silly two-step, perambulate the stage in impossibly cheesy staging, or try to make their lyrics truthful but at the same time full of satire, they
commit.
One even has to Kiss the Cod and like it. Another has to prance around decked out in a silly lobster suit. And they all have to try to wallop over songs that need more energy in the accompaniment.
Well, you get the idea this isn’t high art.
There are original songs from Gillespie that remind you of retreads of Elvis tunes. Some like “Stuck On A Net” are fun, but when Gillespie sings them he hasn’t a lot of power in his pipes. Even in this small venue the show needs the assist of microphones to give it punch. And the singers need to be less tentative, to grab hold of the words and sell them as if they mean them.
Miriam Bekhet’s turn as Squint, the gal who strips off her beige overalls to flaunt sexy black fish nets and a moulting red boa, has fun with her stage transformation. She belts out “Esther in a Sou’wester” as if it really matters.
Leonard Cain is sleazy Rod Fisher — get it? Fish-er? He’s the guy who wants to close down Old Salty’s Dive Bar and open a giant cod liver oil factory on the ruins.
Cain has lots of energy throwing himself into the silliness of the thing without reservation.
He has his sights on Annette, played by Rebecca Gilbert Millar, who has a pleasant but small voice and has, unfortunately, been encouraged to sweep the bar floor with a broom throughout while she sings one of the show’s sweeter ballads.
Best of the lot is Brian Morton as Old Salty, booming out his lines, socking over his songs, leering naughtily at the audience, with just the right amount of snap, crackle and presumption. Morton elevates things here to something a tad raunchier than the playwright might have intended, and that’s all to the good.
And when he’s not doing all this, he’s playing his guitar, well enough, and firing up his old concertina, like some smiling Italian gondolier, desperately treading water.
I know “The Drowsy Chaperone” was a Fringe show that made it to Broadway, but that was after some high-powered reconstruction. In both its Fringe shows and later on when Mirvish Productions gave it a run in Toronto, it was more than drowsy. It was a big snore.
Could “Swingin’ In St. John’s” do the same thing? Come to life on Broadway, I mean. Stranger things have happened. The thing is, as it stands, it needs better direction, choreography and accompaniment (drums would go a long way to helping the music catch fire.)
And Gillespie, who has made a great start imagining this little show, would need to step back and find people who can make it sound and look professional.
I’m not dissing the performers at Artbar. I’m talking about how Gillespie needs to let go a little and bring in visionaries who can make this thing really sing and dance with sharp direction and choreography. That way we can all go out the door shouting Wahoo, now that’s a show.