VERTIGO THEATRE IS BACK WITH A PANIC ATTACK

Thriller blends hair- raising moments with campy humour

Nothing like a little time away from it all in the country.

At least, that’s Greg’s ( David van Belle) view of a week or two in the country: namely, that it will be just the thing to get his troubled marriage to Jan ( Brienna Blizzard), an anxious woman, back on the rails after she’s spent several years in a state of high anxiety that left her ( apparently) institutionalized.

This is where we meet the main players of I’ll Be Back Before Midnight, playwright Peter Colley’s entertaining mystery that has been described as the mostproduced Canadian play ever.

One of the reasons for that, oddly enough, is that there aren’t a whole lot of mysteries written by Canadian playwrights.

I don’t know why that is, although if I had to play an armchair sociologist — I think I will — I would say that the sort of murder and mayhem, driven by such emotions as greed, lust and envy, just don’t come naturally to stage storytellers hailing from our very Beige Nation.

That’s a shame, because Colley’s well- worn script — it was previously produced at Vertigo in 2005- 06 — demonstrates that it’s possible to put a Canuck spin on some of those primal emotions in a way that creates a pretty decent, entertaining murder mystery.

Even the characters in I’ll Be Back Before Midnight ( apparently) embody a certain mushy, nerdy Canadian- ness — particularly Greg, a goofball academic whose department head and colleague just happens to be Jan’s father — not that that has anything to do with why he married her.

Before they’ve even had a chance to sniff the fragrant country air, Jan and Greg receive a drop- by visit from their nearest neighbour, George ( Paul Cowling), an amiable country caretaker just checking in to make sure everything’s all right — or so it seems.

The problem is that the house they’ve rented was the scene, years earlier, of a grisly murder. Now the house is haunted.

Odds of whomever is looking for a little quiet time in the country finding rest, relaxation and marital reconciliation: not so hot.

As you might imagine every time a couple in a Vertigo play try to spend a little downtime in the country, bad things happen, and I’ll Be Back Before Midnight is no exception — particularly after Greg’s sister Laura ( Alanna Hawley), who has a very un- sisterly relationship with her brother, shows up to spend some quality time with him.

It is familiar, Gothic camp horror mystery stuff — a variation on The Haunting last year, which was a variation on The Huron Bride the year before — but hey, we don’t tune in to watch 82 Flames games ( starting next week) and expect them to reinvent the puck every single time out, do we?

Part of the fun of going to Vertigo Mystery Theatre is that it’s comfort food for scary stories — and I’ll Be Back Before Midnight goes down like a plate of nachos smothered in cheese, chili and even the odd scary jalapeno pepper.

Director Daryl Cloran mostly presses all the right buttons in I’ll