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EDMONTON - The current Theatre Network production of Vancouver playwright Michele Riml's Poster Boys is based on a true story. Apparently, a West Coast agency used a couple of gay men in an ad to sell a Credit Union's progressive attitude.
The Catholic church was angered and immediately cancelled a program, sponsored by the company, to teach schoolchildren how to manage their money.
Riml hangs much of the drama of her play on the question of what would happen if one of the men in the ad was a devout Catholic.
Caroline (Davina Stewart -- looking gorgeous) is the hard- driving creative director of the agency. She's getting older ("Twenty-five is a hard age to hold on to.") She's brilliant but brittle and worried that she's losing it.
Her junior assistant Brad (Jesse Gervais) has become her latest lover.
When she meets the guys who will be posing for the ad it turns out that one of them, Jack (Jeff Haslam), was the love of her life who left her at the altar when he confronted his sexuality. The other is Carson (Frank Zotter), a rising young architect, who is not sure about appearing in the ad anyway.
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Riml's play is consistently hilarious. And not just the two gays. In fact, their relationship is so warm and loving, and they are so funny together, that you wish you could just hang out with them.
There are a number of set pieces that will get you laughing -- such as a photo session where the two try to be gay for the camera but don't know how to do it. The instant and easy chemistry between the two actors is worth the price of the ticket.
But Riml sees the humour in the emotional permutations of all her characters and gives each of her actors a chance to work it. Except, perhaps, Gervais, who struggles heroically with a role that's more a dramatic device than a real character.
But Riml keeps us distanced from any real emotion -- except for one quite wrenching scene where Carson's faith wrestles with his sexuality.
There is a protracted supper scene between the two that suddenly is thrown in reverse providing a cheap laugh as they move backwards like characters in a silent movie. I don't know where it came from, but from then on, the play drifted toward a climax that strains belief. There is a brilliantly staged plane crash (media designer -- Ian Jackson) and a melodramatic meltdown from Stewart.
However, in a dazzling company, the actress delivers a standout performance. Her Caroline is a driven, complex woman straining against a life that seems to be going nowhere.
She gives her character's meltdown a go-for-broke reading worthy of a Joan Crawford or Bette Davis.
There is little that is profound here. In trying to be hip, relevant and contemporary in both the queer and commercial worlds, Riml just recycles themes and ideas that have been around for years.