Fortunately, after a protracted pandemic pause, Vancouver’s long-established Arts Membership Theatre Firm is again touring performs to theatres throughout Metro Vancouver, Vancouver Island and the Okanagan.
This week and subsequent (Oct. 11-21), Surrey Arts Centre’s Essential Stage is a tour cease for Mark Crawford’s intercourse farce “The Birds and the Bees,” which had audiences buzzing when it performed the Arts Membership’s Granville Island stage in 2019.
The present was presupposed to tour the next 12 months however, effectively, you may guess why these plans had been cancelled.
Now, Lauren Taylor is again directing the farmhouse-set comedy, about beekeeper Gail (performed by Nancy Kerr), her turkey-farmer daughter Sarah (Agnes Tong), flirty neighbour Earl (Gerry Mackay) and a nerdy grad scholar named Ben (Riley Hardwick).
The solid is solely new for the 2023 manufacturing, set in adjoining bedrooms of Gail’s dwelling. When daughter Sarah strikes in after splitting together with her husband, the pair of males add to the hilarity, together with awkward conversations in regards to the synthetic insemination of turkeys and a “gobble, gobble” mating ritual borrowed by people at an area dance.
“Audiences are in for an actual deal with as a result of that is simply such an enormous, beautiful, joyful comedy and precisely the type of factor that all of us may do with proper now, a little bit of fun,” Taylor raved, and rightly so.
There are some assured giggles within the play, which is extra of a romp-com than rom-com with some naughty moments for grownup eyes solely.
CLICK HERE to observe a trailer centered on the 2019 manufacturing of “The Birds and The Bees.”
2-bedroom stage is about for intercourse comedy “The Birds and The Bees” by @theArtsClub at Kay Meek in West Van, on regional tour (Surrey Arts Centre reveals Oct 11-21). Nice to see ACT again on tour after pandemic pause. @SurreyArtsCtre pic.twitter.com/pgtlVnDmzm
— Tom Zillich (@TomZillich) October 6, 2023
The story strikes rapidly with the assistance of what the director calls “probably the most pleasant group of actors, very humorous people who find themselves excellent for this glowing intercourse comedy. The 4 characters are caught up on this hapless scenario simply attempting to determine it out.”
It’s not all laughs, although. A thread of environmental alarm runs by way of Crawford’s script, which additionally includes a medical emergency.
With an annual Turkey Days dance deliberate, Gail is distracted by the truth of her bees dying and why pesticides utilized by corn farmer Earl is perhaps responsible.
In the end, the humorous moments significantly outnumber the dramatic ones.
“Folks find yourself getting caught of their underwear, and it’s big enjoyable,” the Australian-born director confirmed with fun. “There’s no nudity apart from one second the place we see a really fast splash of a naked bottom, a fast reveal earlier than blackout. However there’s numerous protecting up and slamming of doorways.”
Present tickets are priced from $29 to $54 on Surrey Civic Theatre’s on-line field workplace, tickets.surrey.ca, or name 604-501-5566.
The manufacturing’s Surrey run features a “Paint on the Play” matinee Saturday, Oct. 14 (drop off youngsters aged six to 11 for an artwork camp whereas adults benefit from the present), a Talkback Thursday chat with the actors Oct. 19, and a matinee with VocalEye Audio description for patrons who’re blind or partially sighted, Oct. 21.
Ashlie Corcoran, the White Rock-raised inventive director of Arts Membership Theatre Firm, calls “The Birds and The Bees” a big-hearted, foolish, fashionable and progressive intercourse farce, the place the older characters get to have as a lot enjoyable, or extra, than their youthful counterparts.
“However, this piece can also be rather more than frolicking enjoyable,” she added. “It additionally performs with generational variations and the best way these variations are revealed in problems with environmentalism, economics, sexuality, and ‘good morals’.”
Later in its 2023-24 season, ACT will ship two different reveals on tour together with Beau Dixon’s music-filled “Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story” (Jan. 9-20 at Surrey Arts Centre) and Farren Timoteo’s hilarious “Made In Italy,” a coming-of-age musical about household, meals and the lifetime of Italian immigrants in rural Jasper, Alberta (Feb. 27 to March 9).
The Arts Membership’s flagship Stanley stage in Vancouver will current 5 reveals in the course of the firm’s Sixtieth-anniversary “diamond” season, beginning with “Little Store of Horrors” (closes Oct. 8) and the vacation present “Elf: The Musical” (opens Nov. 2).