Cambrian’s 74th Season Closing with a Bang
By Taylor Onski
From Scrooge to The Snow Queen, Cambrian Players 74th season brought complex and complicated characters to life. So it is very fitting their season closer, Sleuth, is a cat-and-mouse game where who is the cat and mouse will shift and change.
When esteemed mystery novelist Andrew Wyke (Andrea Jacobsen) invites Milo Tindle (Rob Paularinne) over to his country manor, their gentlemanly chat turns into both mind games and literal games between the two men as Milo’s affair with Andrew’s wife comes to light.
“The writer, Anthony Shaffer, kind of takes the piss out of classic mystery novels,” says director Stefani Celine. “It’s not serious, but it’s not a comedy. It makes fun of classic thriller and mystery tropes in a classic and cheeky way.” Celine is also pumped to lean away from abstract sets and speakers and have fun with the bangs and crashes of old school theatrics. “We’re going to have diegetic sound, glass breaking onstage, and vases and a safe exploding,” says Celine. “I hope audiences after this will want to see more of this kind of theatre—more theatre that takes chances with effects and pushes what you can do on a small stage.”
Stefani Celine
After first meeting in Cambrian Players’ 2018 production of Hamlet, Jacobsen and Paularinne are two friends ecstatic to be working together again in this exciting and challenging endeavour of a two-person play (with special guests). “Audiences are going to feel elated at certain points, and terrified at others,” says Jacobsen. “This is a hell of a journey, and is probably one of the best they’re going to get this year.”
As for the journey itself, while it may appear intense and a lot of work for an actor, this two-hander is, quite literally, in good hands. “I think that audiences are going to recognize that these aren’t just two people who are stuck together having to do this,” says Paularinne. “These are two friends who are having a hell of a lot of fun and doing what we need to do to tell a complicated and enjoyable story.”
Sleuth runs from May 22–25 and May 29–June 1 at the Cambrian Players Theatre (818 Spring Street). Visit cambrianplayers.com or find them on Facebook and Instagram @cambrianplayers for more info.
