At the Studio Theatre, Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ont. Created by Lucy Peacock and friends. July 19.
Lucy Peacock calls her late night cabaret shows (Aug. 9 and 23 remaining) not a show but a ‘share’. She shares the stage with many wonderful artists, some of whom are in the company, to come and sing, play, tell stories or read. And she shares the good will and joy of it all with her adoring audience.
The set suggests her living room; many rugs on the floor; comfy oversized chairs around the perimeter of the stage where guests lounge until their turn to perform; toys; instruments, album jacket covers, music stands and microphones dot the stage. Homey, eclectic.
The make-up of the show suggests ‘seat-of-the-pants.’ The show I saw on Friday (July 19) was arranged and ‘discussed’ on Wednesday by e-mail with all the participants, deciding what they would perform; when etc. There was no program for the audience, but that’s the whole business of ‘seat-of-the-pants’ with the late nights. Ms Peacock kept the order straight by reading from her spiral notebook who was to perform next.
She also sang, played guitar, got the audience singing along, charmed everybody in the room, spread her joy of being there and got it back in equal measure.
Sean Alexander Hauk did an impressive duet of “The Song That Goes Like This” from Spamalot in which he sang both the part of Dennis in a booming baritone voice, and the part of The Lady of the Lake, in a strong soprano voice. He suggested the part of The Lady by using a hand-puppet with lots of flipping of her long red hair.
Tyrone Savage offered much harmonica accompaniment; played the ukulele and sang an energetic duet of a song whose title I don’t know with the equally rousing help of Antoine Yared.
Sabryn Rock also sang in a beautiful voice, again, I don’t know the name of the song but the performance was mighty impressive.
Lighting designer Itai Erdal told two hilarious stories of his time in the Israeli army, both of which lead to his being court marshalled.
Roy Lewis, courtly in a tie, haiku’d “Makkers”
With wit and a smile.
So many surprising talents besides acting. Such a terrific evening. And it ended on time with the audience and cast singing in unison. Smiling.
There are only two more Late Night with Lucy shows Aug. 9 and 23). www.stratfordfestival.ca