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REVIEW: Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii

Gloria Katch reviews the current comedy playing at the Thorold Community Theatre
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The old pie-in-the-face gag is still a good one. Bob Liddycoat / Thorold News

When Peter, a character played by Trent Matthews, asks after smoking marijuana: “Is my stuff that good? -- it’s an indicator the real madcap world created by famed Canadian playwright, Allan Stratton, surpasses any stoner’s crazy delusions.

Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii is a fun-filled, wacky vacation, far from reality. It's been produced more than 300 times; and Thorold Community Theatre now rides the wave of this successful show, launched last Friday. Performances run on the weekends until Nov. 23, and it’s best to order tickets online as they often sell out in advance. 

Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii was written in 1980 and helped launch Stratton’s mercurial career as an actor-playwright. Diana Burse directs her second production here with a good sense of farcical timing in attempts to create comedic chaos.

This story begins with Doris Chisholm, confidently portrayed by Lisa Cook, a successful relationship advice columnist, who pays too little attention to her own. As a result, her husband Edgar is about to have an affair with flakey romance novelist, Vivien Bliss, who becomes his muse after they meet at a pottery class. Actress Jessica Code is marvelous as the bubbly, optimistic and kooky author.

When Edgar thinks his wife has left town, he brings Vivien home for the weekend to inspire her to write, and to get romantic.

He discovers his wife is actually still home and has cancelled her trip, while Vivien's in the washroom, slipping into something more comfortable. Under any normal circumstances, a wife catching her husband in an affair in their living room would be a dangerous scenario. However, normal is not a descriptor for this play.

Edgar’s role, spontaneously and delightfully delivered by Sean Carsley, shows little guilt for his bad behaviour, and has Doris contemplating their relationship. While she does temporarily throw her husband out, she realizes she hasn’t been the attentive wife she should be. Factor in the daft, child-like innocence of Vivien, who candidly prattles on about her lonely life and weird relationships, making it difficult for Doris to remain angry with her.

One of the play’s highlights is Vivien’s incessant romance writing. As she writes her novel aloud, its events in Hawaii are applied as a humorous narration and commentary on events happening in the home, and vice versa. Exotic Hawaii becomes symbolic of the apartment’s events. Warm, moist winds, stormy weather and volcanoes represent the sexual urges and stirring passion that lie beneath Edgar’s statistical weather reports. The humour lies in the absurdity of the situation and characters.

This romantic tryst, set in a cozy home, becomes more comedically pressurized when Doris invites a journalist from the United Church Observor to interview her. She fears the journalist could damage her reputation if she discovers what’s really happening. Then a man, who shows up at her door with a nylon stocking over his head, sends Doris running, assuming he's a rapist. She soon realizes “the rapist” is Bill Scant, a geeky former lover, who is trying to reconnect.  

In fact, everyone’s awkward past shows up, and amazingly, they are all inter-connected--on the surface.

Bill is portrayed with the right amount of self-deprecation by Brian Cranford, who has directed five Thorold Community Theatre productions. This marks his debut as an actor. 

The situation worsens when Vivien pretends to be Doris’s crazy sister, which she can handle without trying. The pretense is amusing for the audience, who constantly witnesses the mistaken identities and other gaffes that occur as a result.

Vivien is most devastated when Betty, her nasty, authoritarian editor, who hunts her down for a finished novel, ends up being Bill’s current wife, and Edgar’s first wife, who is irked to see her there when he returns home. However, it takes some courage to confront Betty, fearlessly portrayed by Nikki Blain.

Matthews plays long-lost adopted hippie child, Peter Prior, who is searching for his parents after years in foster care and psychotherapy. Despite his dysfunctional background, he applies his analytical therapy and is closest to a normal character as this play gets. After 10 minutes in the Chisholm residence, which has become busier and crazier than a psych ward on Halloween, he shares a joint with Vivien to get some sense of sanity. Bad idea, but hilarious! Vivien hogs the joint and gets off like a rocket, spewing mumbo-jumbo about witch doctors and other spirit gods in Hawaii, blowing Peter’s mind.

Confusion and complications eventually subside as the mysterious background of each person humorously unravels by the play’s end. The reporter, cleverly portrayed by Cheyenne McIntyre of Thorold Secondary School, connects the dots using her investigative journalism skills.

If there's anything to be learned about relationships and life from Stratton, it’s to treat people with kindness, respect, and to embrace your past. No bullies are allowed on this island. 

Living vicariously through her characters, Vivien completes her pulp fiction romance, while remaining a sweet and silly virgin, never experiencing a torrid love affair, like the waves crashing on the enchanted beaches of Hawaii.

Performance dates include Fridays, Nov. 15 and 22 at 8 p.m., Saturdays, Nov. 16 and 23 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. at Trinity United Church Hall, 15 Pine St. South.

Tickets cost $15, and are available at www.thoroldtheatre.ca. Online ticket purchases are subject to a small processing fee.

For more information about tickets, email [email protected], call 905-682-8779, or visit www.thoroldtheatre.ca.