Campground comedy light entertainment

Campground, a combination comedy, murder mystery and one-man show, is innovative as well as unique.

The 90-minute production from creator Lucas Myers tried to hit all the comedic high notes at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on Friday: from simple and juvenile jokes using lots of F-bombs to sophisticated humour about a man engaged to a woman wondering if he should cancel his wedding and come out of the closet as a homosexual.

Campground also fits the definition of camp: ostentatious, exaggerated, affected and theatrical.

The stage comedy, written and performed by Nelson-based Myers, features his trademark observational humour and character work.

He plays all six roles, instilling each with a different costume (including touque, dreadlocks, blond wig, cowboy hat, glasses) or accent or physical mannerism.

It’s a madcap adventure based on a missing young man who was last seen at a provincial campground and an overzealous, inexperienced police constable who becomes obsessed with discovering whether foul play was involved.

In the end, it was not — as Skakespeare may have once said — a play (or murder) most foul.

Campground does have numerous unusual elements.

Throughout the sold-out show, the audience viewed iPhone videos from the victim projected on a screen at the side of the stage.

The audience heard a hilarious CBC interview with the constable which results in his suspension (“with pay” — confirmed as a result of an impromptu audience question).

The constable used a live feed (thanks to the Mary Irwin Theatre’s internet password) to access the Facebook profiles of hipster Justin Case from Vancouver and redneck Michael Hodgkins from Medicine Hat (both Myers’ accounts).

Suspects in the disappearance performed original and humourous songs composed by Myers using a guitar and ukelele.

The highlight was a wish for global warming so the character could go for a swim in frigid lake water.

Everyone’s life is changed through the interaction with the missing youth.

Myers recruited an audience member (who completely got into his comedic role) to hold the flashlight for a juvenile shadow puppet show using kitchen implements like a fork and pasta server to play the various characters.

The audience was asked to shout if the closest homosexual should “stay the course” or “ppen the door.” The latter choice was unanimous. For those who checked the show advertisement in advance, they could do some sleuthing on their own by visiting the Facebook profiles of Case and Hodgkins to find some clues.

There wasn’t audience-wide chuckles or bellylaughs during the show and the reaction by some was lukewarm.

But Myers did received enthusiastic applause at the end although not the standing ovation he has received elsewhere.

An avid camper, Myers came up with the show concept after a camping trip with family in the Shuswap.

He was named Nelson’s cultural ambassador in 2012, and has lived there since the age of eight with a seven-year absence to study theatre at the National Theatre School in Montreal and the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in New York.

A few years ago, he performed Deck, subtitled How I Instigated Then Overcame an Existential Crisis Through Home Improvement.

In that solo show, he plays a neurotic single parent who actually builds a deck on the stage.

The wooden structure is raffled off at the end.