Summer fun with the Foster Festival

Earlier this week the Foster Festival opened the second of three summer productions, part of their inaugural season at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines.  The mandate of the Festival is simple:  produce plays by noted Canadian playwright Norm Foster, certainly the most well-known and most-loved Canadian playwright.

In fact, it's estimated on average, there are about 150 productions of his plays each year globally.  Here in Canada, of course, his plays have been staples of the summer theatre circuit for many years now.  I've seen Foster plays in Port Dover, Sutton, Muskoka and several other locals, in fact.

Foster lent his name to the Festival here in St. Catharines when it was launched amid much fanfare last June, and it was determined at the time all Norm Foster premieres would take place at the Festival that bears his name.  The remainder of the season would feature two of his other plays, of which you can choose your favourite from a long list of Foster classics.

In June, the first-ever Foster Festival production opened, with Norm Foster himself starring alongside Artistic Director Patricia Vanstone in On A First Name Basis.  When the new Festival was announced last year, both Vanstone and Foster were starring in this same show at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope.

I unfortunately missed the first show of the season, but this week's opening of Here on the Flight Path was enthusiastically received from what I could see at the Cairns Recital Hall at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.  Although the theatre was not full to capacity for opening night, it was close, and that was encouraging.

It will take time for the whole idea of watching live theatre in downtown St. Catharines becomes second nature in this city.  We're conditioned to either go to a movie, a live theatre performance at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a summer music event or simply stay home on the patio.  The notion of heading downtown to see live theatre at all is something totally new to most generations in the Garden City.

I hope this fact is not lost on the management and board of the Foster Festival; although the first year will be challenging as they struggle to grab a foothold on the summer entertainment scene in the area, hopefully the coming years will get somewhat easier.

If the quality of the current production is anything to go by, they should be on solid financial footing in coming years.  There is simply much to like and not a heck of a lot not to like about the current production.

Directed by Blair Williams and starring the real-life husband and wife team of Jamie Williams and Melanie Janzen, Here on the Flight Path is typical Norm Foster:  take something from everyday life and make it into an uproariously funny situation.  That is the magic of a Foster play - you can't help but see yourself in many of his plays or at least, someone you know.

In this play, easily one of his funniest, we are introduced to newspaper columnist John Cummings, who writes about "Cummings and Goings" as he often reminds people.  Cummings lives in an apartment, alone and more or less recently divorced, and spends an inordinate amount of time on his apartment's balcony.

He introduces us to three of the neighbours who have shared the other half of the balcony over a period of a couple of years or so.  They are all female, and each one lives alone for one reason or another.  The first is Fay, a woman of the night who prefers not to bring her work home with her.  Next we meet Angel, an aspiring actress from Calgary whose father has deep pockets.  And then there's Gwen, broken and downtrodden at first with a healthy appetite for wine.

John gets to know all three rather well; he is the one neighbour you can count on to always be there when you need him, but you just don't want to get too close, just in case.

For Faye, he comes in rather handy one night when she actually does bring work home with her and things get out of hand rather quickly.  With Angel he offers moral support as she tries in vain to chart a course in the acting profession.  And with Gwen, he provides comfort and companionship after her life undergoes significant change.  It is only Gwen who seems to click with John with any sort of permanence.

John is a friendly sort, just nosey enough to be a newspaperman but smart enough to know when he has pushed the limits as far as he can.  He is overly chatty, very observant and at times either a little annoying or quite helpful.

As with any Norm Foster play, the writing is superb, although I sometimes get the sense he is sometimes too clever for his own good.  But he comes up with lines you can remember long after the play has ended, and that is a talent not every playwright is able to master.

In Here on the Flight Path, the most memorable moments for me come in the second act when he discovers Angel is auditioning for a part in a musical based on the novel Moby Dick, entitled "Positively Ahab" and Cummings describes it as "Grease with harpoons".  Angel for her part mistakenly refers to "Wuthering Heights" as "Withering Heights".

The set is simple yet effective, clearly demonstrating the close proximity in which many apartment dwellers live.  The students who helped the Foster Festival with the set construction did an exceptional job.

If there are any complaints with the production, it would be I'd like to see John in a more obvious change of clothes for each act.  It almost looks like he lives in the same polo shirt and pants every day of the year.  I know many men might actually appear to be doing that, but a little variety might not hurt in either case.  I also wouldn't mind seeing some semblance of an apartment beyond the sliding doors leading to the balcony.  All we see here is a black hole the actors step in and out of.  Even a painted backdrop to suggest furniture might be nice.

Okay, I know I am splitting hairs here.  Overall, the show is solid, funny, well acted and directed and very much worth your time this summer.  Here on the Flight Path continues until July 30th with both evening and matinee performances on selected dates.

For tickets and more information, call the PAC box office at 905-688-0722, or go to the Foster Festival website at www.fosterfestival.com.

The Foster Festival should be a summer tradition in Niagara.  It has everything going for it:  great location, quality production values and a knowledgeable and experienced management team in place. Now all they need is support from the community.

Feel like a laugh on a summer's day?  Catch the latest offering from The Foster Festival and discover why we are lucky to have such an ambitious project right in our own backyards.

Have a great weekend!

July 17th, 2016.