Okotoks’ long-running community theatre troupe is calling Bullshot
Photographing the Dewdney Players’ production of Bullshot Crummond, which opens tomorrow evening at the Rotary Performing Arts Centre (RPAC), I had to drop a lot of images because of camera shake while I laughed.
While I don’t usually go in for slapstick, the play – and more importantly, the cast – leans into it with self-aware performances and prop comedy.
With the same sort of nonsense action and tomfoolery you would expect from Airplane or Austin Powers, the play pokes fun at tropes of old spy and detective stories with the titular character Hugh ‘Bullshot’ Crummond stumbling his way to victory.
“He is an idiot. Everything he touches turns to gold, even though it’s a total accident,” said actor Dave Hall, who plays Crummond, in an interview.
“He stumbles into success time after time, gets all the applause and deserves none of the credit.”
The play follows Crummond, whose dubious detective prowess is sought out by Rosemarie Fenton to track down her father, Professor Rupert Fenton, who's been kidnapped by the sleuth’s nemesis, Count Otto Von Brunno and his sister Lenya.
New-to-us actor Hall certainly isn't new to the stage, having been a theatre teacher for 15 years in the UK before his recent emigration to Canada.
His performance, however stupid the character, shows that experience.
Daniel Rose plays a multi-role performance that must have had makeup running like a pit crew, while Anne-Marie Cotton plays the ‘shadow’ manipulating several props throughout the production.
Despite being clad in a black spandex morph suit, she still brought loads of personality to the ridiculous show.
Packaged as an intentionally-low budget theatrical performance, Bullshot Crummond opens with a prop airplane (played by Cotton) trailing red ribbons of fire ‘crashing’ off stage, just before two small rag doll figures representing villains Otto and Lenya Von Brunno are thrown on stage with parachutes.
Playing the naïve-yet-astute Rosemary Fenton is another relatively new face to Dewdney, Kelly Kozak, who recently acted in the Players’ production of Twelfth Night.
Like the rest of the ensemble, her character plays a stereotype taken to the absurd.
“It takes place in the ‘30s, so she’s very much raised with that typical thinking of the time,” Kozak said, adding her character simply adds to the ridiculous mosaic.
"It's just really funny. A lot of slapstick type humour, really quick paced, a lot of sight gags.
“There's a lot to remember as an actor; it's not just lines, it's very physical and timing is everything in the show.”
The play runs Oct. 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, and Nov. 2, 3 and 4 at 7:30 p.m., with matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 4 at 2 p.m.
For tickets and information visit www.dewdneyplayers.com or ShowPass.com.
