Lazy Susan

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Lazy Susan

Playwright/s – Col Cseke

Production Company / Theatre space – (Semi-professional) Inside Out Theatre and Handsome Alice / The Big Secret Theatre, Werklund Centre.

Length – 1 Act, 1 hour 50 minutes (no intermission)

Genre/s – Drama

Premise – A pharmacist (who may or may not be a hoarder) finds solace in after work sojourns to the bar to talk about her life while her bi-racial, legally blind daughter (who may or not be addicted to her phone) deals with exploitation at work and their father/husband lives with (and finally deals with) his substance abuse disorder and gabbling addiction.

Why this play? Why now? – Addiction and systemic racism are sadly still relevant. This show pushes boundaries of audience interaction with the goal of inclusivity beyond described audio.

Curiosities – Having partnered with Downstage, Verb Theatre, and now Inside Out Theatre is Handsome Alice losing its identity? Why the mystery instruction at the end of the play?

Notable Moment – Watching audience members interact with objects.

Notable writing – The script is mostly monologues that “tell” rather than “show”. This is ironic since it is a show about “touch”. When we get to the dialogue scenes they work well. We skip over really important scenes around confrontation, moments of insight, epiphany, and major life-changing moments. Instead, the characters have these moments outside of the play and talk about them, losing all the best bits of the drama.

Notable performances – It’s always a challenge to have new and emerging actors share the stage with seasoned professionals. The women carry 98% of the script. Juggling lines, blocking, costume changes, an oversized turntable, and literally hundreds of rotating objects of different sizes, temperatures, liquidity, and mobility. It is quite an undertaking and Elinor Holt, Ashley King, and Jamie Ceser really deserve their “round” of applause at the end.

Notable design/Production – There are seats at an oversized “lazy susan” table and seats in the round. There was no set designer and maybe one wasn’t called for beyond the convention. Kudos to stage Manager Meredith Johnson for managing that number of props in that amount of space backstage!

Notable direction –. I did close my eyes for 40% of the play as recommended, however I realize I am not the target audience for this work. Director Caleigh Crow could have been hampered by the number of props and people to facilitate the, along with the time constraints but pulls it off.  The play runs long but with less orchestration it could have limped on for hours, this was not the case.

One reason to see this show – I think the reasons to go should be given by the audience this was intended for, but Elinor Holt is always a good bet.