Theatre Calgary presents Steve Martin’s comedy Meteor Shower

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Whether or not it’s Paul Newman’s pasta sauces, Rihanna’s fragrances or a play by Steve Martin, superstar sells.

If Meteor Bathe had been written by a comparatively unknown playwright, it could by no means have loved a Broadway manufacturing because it did briefly in 2017, and wouldn’t have graced the Max Bell Theatre as it’s doing till Feb. 11.

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It’s a slight and foolish play, with an emphasis on foolish.

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Martin started engaged on Meteor Bathe again in 1993 and needed to be coaxed into permitting it to be staged at San Diego’s Outdated Globe Theatre in 2016. He determined to not replace the play however to go away it firmly rooted in that decade as a result of it was a time when fixing relationships was in vogue. There have been seminars, retreats, self-help books, and, being California, no scarcity of relationship gurus.

Corky (Helen Knight) and Norm (Nathan Schmidt) are devotedly engaged on their relationship. At any time when there’s attainable strife, they’ve a protected place and protected phrases the place they will remind one another how a lot in love they’re, and why a sure comment might be damaging. It’s a humorous little bit of schtick Martin makes use of to introduce us to this somewhat bland, needy couple.

Corky and Norm have invited Gerald (Braden Griffiths) and Laura (Bahareh Yaraghi), a pair they hardly know, over to observe a a lot anticipated and much-heralded meteor bathe. As {couples} go, Gerald and Laura are the antithesis of their hosts. They’re flashy, brash, and verbally and sexually liberated. It’s apparent from the second Gerald and Laura seem that the heavens is not going to be the one place to expertise a disturbance of epic proportions.

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It’s with the arrival of Gerald and Laura that Martin lets us know he’s working within the theatre of the absurd. For the following 20 minutes, with the usage of blackouts, he proposes a number of attainable encounters, earlier than giving us the precise arrival of what seems to be the friends from planet hell. The viewers learns, earlier than Corky and Norm deduce it, that the rationale Gerald and Laura accepted their invitation was to destroy the calm their hosts have been working so exhausting to maintain, even when meaning, figuratively and actually seducing them into a brand new existence. The ravaging of Corky by her wanton friends is just not not like the comedian seductions in The Rocky Horror Image Present by these interplanetary intruders.

Knight, Schmidt, Griffiths and Yaraghi work tirelessly to maintain Martin’s nonsense as buoyant as attainable. Griffiths provides Gerald a boorish sheen and Yaraghi is a most convincing siren. It’s as much as Knight and Schmidt to be as shocked and unsettled because the viewers is supposed to be. However the tables get turned, placing all 4 actors in utterly completely different modes, and that’s when Schmidt and Griffiths have enjoyable of their seduction scene.

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Director Lezlie Wade retains issues transferring on the frantic tempo essential to hold the viewers from realizing there actually is not any substance to this play. Its sole goal is to maintain pulling the rug from underneath the viewers in a lot the identical method Gerald and Laura are protecting their hosts confused.

Wade and her 4 actors are blessed to have Douglas Paraschuk’s revolving set, and Beth Kates’ lighting and projection results to convey Martin’s topsy-turvy night to life. There’s a great little bit of comedian mayhem every time a meteor shard strikes Corky and Norm’s yard which is pure old-school Martin.

For potential audiences questioning what to anticipate from Meteor Bathe, consider it as an prolonged skit from Saturday Night time Reside.

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