Lend Me a Tenor

Glenbrook Theatre is one of the loveliest little theatres to visit. It is tucked away at the foot of the mountains in a vintage theatre, adorned with photographs from the golden era of Hollywood and fairy lights on entry. You can even get a choc top and a cuppa to take into the show.

Lend Me a Tenor is a great first offering from director Kane Baltetsch; he finds all the comedy in this farce using the appropriate amount of buffoonery and horseplay. 

The show is set in an elegant hotel suite in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934. If you aren’t familiar with this one, it was up for 9 Tony awards and it is very, very funny.

The situation is ludicrous. World renowned Tenor Tito Merelli  (Mitchell Rist) is on his way to perform the lead in Cleveland Opera Company’s Otello. Only Tito is late. Tito is intoxicated. Tito is medicated, melancholy, unconscious and mistaken for dead. 

Enter all-round factotum and hopeless romantic, Max (Tre Doyle) and Company Manager Henry Saunders (James Loder), who cook up a scheme to  masquerade the hapless Max as Tito. After all, everything hangs in the balance and they need to save the future of opera!

With a gaggle of girls chasing Tito and one very cranky authentically Italian wife (Angela Pezzaano in a standout support role) waving her fists in fury and cursing (in Italian) at her philandering superstar husband. 

It’s all here. All the mayhem. All the madness. All the hilarity. All the mistaken identities. Now, Rist and Doyle looking nothing alike but that is all part of the farce and the audience are happy to suspend disbelief. There are people hiding in bathrooms, in closets, in offstage rooms all coming and going and not getting caught. There is swooning and bubbles and doors slamming.  

Of course Tito wakes up and steps into costume and suddenly … two Otellos! Cue more running around, doors slamming and mayhem. 

Loder as the highly strung, brilliantly agitated, grape spitting opera manager is very entertaining, while Doyle and Rist play off each other expertly. Watching the three for their reactions, mannerisms, timing and facial expressions is a treat. Maggie (Ruby Gee) is a lot of fun as the Opera Manager’s daughter who wants worldly experience and bells ringing. 

Costuming nod to Heather McGreal and Felicity Jean who have done a great job with the 30's period and made a respectful decision to have the twin Otello’s in curly wigs and clown faces as opposed to the scripted blackface. 

The set allows for much physical comedy with its simplicity and multiple doors along with possibly a lot of great backstage support the action onstage. 

I look forward to seeing what Baltetsch directs next!  In the meantime, prepare for a couple of hours of belly laughs at the theatre with all the fun of the farce and even a touch of opera sung by Doyle and Rist (vocally coached by Holly Prophet). 

Nicole Smith