Dickens' twisted story comes alive on stage
Three players well-known to local audiences – Emma Rendell, and James Walker and Mike Wild – lend their talents to Fighting Chance Productions’ current production of Rupert Holmes’ Tony Award-winning musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which runs until March 3 at Vancouver’s Metro Theatre.
Rendell plays the role of Helena Landless, Walker appears as Durdles and Wild is cast as Rev. Crisparkle in this “wildly warm hearted theatrical experience” offered by Fighting Chance (their Nunsense was well-received in a White Rock run last year at Coast Capital Playhouse), which reinvents Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel as a flamboyant show put on by the resident troupe of the Music Hall Royale.
The story within the story is Dickens’ melodrama of John Jasper, a Jekyll-and-Hyde church choirmaster who is passionately obsessed with his student Miss Rosa Bud. She, however, is engaged to Jasper’s nephew Edwin Drood – until he disappears mysteriously one stormy Christmas Eve.
Has young Drood been murdered, and, if so, who is the guilty party? In Holmes’ unconventional version, audience and actors together decide the fate of the hapless Edwin each night.
Directed by Fighting Chance founder/artistic director Ryan Mooney, the show also features Alex McMorran (Jasper), Jennifer Doan (Rosa) Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud (Drood), Alfonso Banzon (Neville Landless), Linda Leong Sum (Princess Puffer), Chris Lam (Bazzard) and Jesse Setka (Deputy).
Tickets range from $10 to $30 (plus service charges) and are available at the door, online at www.ticketstonight.ca or by calling 604-684-2787.
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