W.O. Mitchell gets first-class treatment in Rosebud Theatre's Magic Lies

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The world premiere of Magic Lies: An Evening With W.O. Mitchell feels very much at home at Rosebud Theatre, where it plays until Oct. 21.

Penned by Michell’s son Orm and daughter-in-law Barbara Mitchell, and based on An Evening With W.O. Mitchell, their 1997 anthology of some of the performances pieces Mitchell used for his own one-man shows, it’s 100 minutes of memories, anecdotes and excerpts from his novels, radio shows and plays.

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Rosebud’s Opera House stage is an ideal setting for the show because, to reach this little hamlet, one has to pass through the kind of prairie wheat fields, cattle ranches, rolling foothills, and to avoid hitting all those darting gophers Mitchell lovingly recalls in his works.

Mitchell had a flair for drama, not just in his characters and plots, but in his own personality. He was a trained elocutionist, and loved theatre with a passion. Any time he performed readings of his works, he became those wonderful folksy characters he created.

With Rosebud’s own Nathan Schmidt, this evening of Magic Lies is in very good hands. Schmidt is a true chameleon so he can slip effortlessly into the skins of such beloved Mitchell characters as Daddy Sherry from The Kite, or Jake and the Kid from the fictional Saskatchewan town of Crocus. Schmidt never parodies them, but rather becomes them.

There is often a rambunctious note to these characters who emerge, and Schmidt has a genuine bounce to his gait when they do. When they are aged, that gait becomes a shuffle, and when they are children, there’s a impending skip to each step. The same nuances grace Schmidt’s voice.

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Schmidt is also tasked with becoming Mitchell, because Magic Lies is meant to be a recreation of one of the Canadian icon’s actual shows. Schmidt plays with those famous horn-rimmed glasses, and inhales snuff, wiping his fingers each time on his sweater, until there is the noticeable stain that so annoyed his wife Merna.

Mitchell was famous for his unruly mop of white hair, which a wig is meant to recreate, but it is far too thick and thus distracting. It needs a desperate thinning given all the other loving attention paid to costume and performance.

There are too many highlights in Magic Lies to recount, but a few demand recalling, as is the case with three young boys, a stick of dynamite, a prairie outhouse and an elderly gentleman. It’s classic W.O. and it illustrates not just his cheeky humour, but his genius at supplying a winning punchline to an anecdote. Those were characters and a situation W.O. created, but The Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg Address fiasco happened to Mitchell himself when he was a teenager. It found him improvising Lincoln’s famous speech all the while trying to remove a spittoon from his foot. There was often a self-deprecating flair to Mitchell when he talked about himself.

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Designer Robyn Ayles has included a lectern on his stark set, but director Karen Johnson-Diamond never allows the performance to feel like a lecture. She has encouraged Schmidt to uses as much of the stage as possible, sitting occasionally in the big arm chair and using the lectern as if he’s checking notes, getting his snuff, or pouring himself a glass of water. It all helps to make the show feel so natural.

Rosebud has given this much deserved tribute to W.O. Mitchell life. Hopefully other theatres across Canada will host this production, or create one of their own, because Michell is a Canadian icon who deserves to be remembered and enjoyed.

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