Oh, the tangled web we weave.
The latest Between Shifts Theatre Squamish production is the story of one weekend gone awry.
Don't Dress for Dinner is the sequel to Boeing Boeing, which Between Shifts performed in 2015. Now, playboy Bernard — who was juggling three fiancées in Boeing Boeing — is down to a wife and a mistress, who unbeknownst to them are about to cross paths for the first time.
"I think Bernard is the most deceitful character in the play. He tries to manipulate a lot of people to help him. Oddly enough, he works it quite well," said Maclean Falkins, the actor taking on the role of Bernard. "He plays a very innocent role among the whole thing where he thinks he's doing right be everybody in trying to make everybody get along. Really, it's not possible when he's deceiving so many people. I think he wants everybody to be happy — especially himself."
Bernard's plans for a weekend tryst quickly get complicated when his wife — upon learning his best friend/her lover is visiting — changes her plans to stay for the weekend. Neither knows about the other's affair, but the plot thickens when a hired cook gets mistaken as the mistress and vice versa.
"Nobody tells the truth, let's put it that way," director Janice Carroll said during a dress rehearsal.
Since Carroll retired from teaching at Howe Sound Secondary, she's helped Between Shifts put on three shows. Carroll was even Falkins's drama teacher when he performed in high school musicals. Since then, he's been part of around 15 productions with the local theatre company.
Other actors behind the Don't Dress for Dinner characters are also familiar faces on the Eagle Eye Theatre stage.
Jessica Kelly will grace the stage for her second show as she plays the cook turned mistress turned niece turned cook. She also choreographed some 1960s-inspired dance scenes.
"There's definitely a lot of layers," Kelly said of her character. "I've had to go through the script and be pretty clear about who I am to myself and who I am to the others in the show at any given time. It doesn't help that she does some drinking as the show goes on."
Tara Bowland is also returning to the stage for a third time, as the very French wife, Jacqueline. She said she hopes the audience will laugh through the chaos.
"It's really a lot of fun, this play. From beginning to end, it's just a riot," Bowland said.
It's true. During dress rehearsal, the production crew and actors off stage laugh as they watch the comedy unfold.
Don't Dress for Dinner runs Thursdays to Saturdays on April 4 to 6, and 10 to 13 at the Eagle Eye Community Theatre, starting at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at betweemshiftstheatre.com.
