Theatre
Lucky Stiff
M Space

We’ve all wondered what it might be like to have our lives changed for the better by an unexpected twist of fate – perhaps a new job opportunity, a windfall by means of an inheritance or being swept off our feet by a stranger when we least expect it.

A good showcase of this group’s hard work

The idea was explored with much hilarity in Lucky Stiff, Masquerade Musical Theatre group’s final year exam piece – a musical farce by Flaherty and Ahrens where the craziest of circumstances lead to a series of incredibly funny and certainly life-changing events, if not quite necessarily ending the way the protagonists expect them to.

This piece marked the first collaboration of Flaherty and Ahrens in 1988. It was quite fitting that it was chosen to mark the end of a collaboration between the students in Masquerade’s original Musical Theatre group as it helped them to work on all the skills and techniques the course had offered them. Acting as a soft launch for the Blue Box theatre at M Space and under the direction of course coordinator Rachel Fabri, the eight students were put through their paces as the cast of zany characters encountered by Harry Witherspoon.

Witherspoon, played by an earnest Vikesh Godhwani, is a bored English shoe salesman with a dead-end job and a quite life, which is turned upside down by a letter stating that his rich and distant American uncle, whom he has never met, Tony Hendon, has died, leaving him as sole inheritor of a $6 million fortune as long as he executes his wishes to the letter; otherwise the money would go to the Universal Dog Home in Brooklyn, Tony’s favourite charity.

The one snag in all this is that poor Harry has to cart his dead uncle around in a wheelchair on an all-expenses paid trip to Monte Carlo in the South of France and fulfil some very specific tasks, from scuba diving and fishing to dancing and gambling, which uptight and conservative Harry has never tried before, all with an embalmed corpse (Andre Agius) in tow.

Lucky Stiff’s concept is Monte Carlo meets Weekend at Bernie’s, where the often exasperated Harry, following his uncle’s recorded instructions on a cassette player, starts off trying to get the week over with and secure the fortune with several people in hot pursuit.

These include the annoying Annabel Glick, a representative of the Dog’s Home who is ready to pounce when Harry makes a single mistake and deviates from his set instructions, allowing her to claim the money for her institution, and the more dangerous duo of optometrist Vinnie di Ruzzio and his legally blind sister Rita La Porta.

The last two are on their way to get hold of a box containing the $6 million in diamonds which Rita had embezzled from her husband with the help of dead uncle Tony, her erstwhile lover. Having pinned the blame on her goofy, unsuspecting brother Vinnie, Rita drags him along for the ride since her husband has set a bounty on his head.

A legally blind, emotionally unstable woman, who is still in love with the man she killed in a crime of passion, is not the person one would trust most with a gun, and Tina Frendo’s portrayal of Rita was incredibly fresh and fun – she managed to blend unhinged and somehow likeable together very nicely.

In Rita’s Confession and Fancy Meeting You Here, her loud leopard prints matched her sass while her controlled singing and excellent comic timing gained her some great laughs. Frendo is indeed one to watch.

Cutajar’s interaction as Vinnie with his crazy sister Rita also showed good pacing and understanding of the character. Him, Them, It, Her, their four-part song with Godhwani’s Harry and Tina Rizzo’s Annabel, was great fun and exposed the solid dynamic between the four performers.

Two of my favourite numbers were Dogs vs You, performed by Harry and Annabel and which was a song where animosity and whacky lyrics made for good comedy; and Speaking French, where Vanessa Gatt’s Dominique du Monaco rolls her Rs around Harry, getting him all hot and bothered.

Godhwani’s great timing and his ability to sum up the gist of the situation through his facial expressions was good to watch and Rizzo’s good singing voice and strong characterisation have much promise. Gatt’s sensual rendition of Monte Carlo was well controlled and was supported by an introduction and conclusion, in which the rest of the cast members joined in.

The three members of the ensemble who portrayed multiple characters – Ema Attard, Jessica Camilleri and Philippa Mifsud – showed adaptability, particularly Attard who played the eccentric and rather exuberant Luigi and provided the voice-over for Uncle Tony’s recorded commands.

All in all, Lucky Stiff was an entertaining student piece and a good showcase of this group’s hard work.