Drama Beat
Don’t miss Playgoers of Lethbridge’s production of Canadian playwright Sean Devine’s 2017 drama “Daisy.”
It only runs two more days, tonight and tomorrow, Feb. 21 and 22 in the Sterndale Bennett Theatre downtown.
It’s weird just watching a play rather than being in it, but I was very impressed with this technological masterpiece and the cast, most of whom are new to Playgoers of Lethbridge, but not to the stage.
The play, based around the first political attack ad , “Daisy,” which ran once during the 1964 Johnson Goldwater presidential election but changed the face of political advertising forever. It shows the more things change, the more they stay the same as we go into another presidential election.
The new play explores the fear of nuclear war overwhelming the U.S.A during the ’60s and perfectly captures the era.
It is about the advertising agency behind the ad and the people involved with the ad.
Director Rita Peterson beautifully and subtly helps the cast capture the quirks of their characters.
Cole Fetting, who plays the neurotic and paranoid Aaron Ehrlich, provides the comic relief, standing between the battles between the agency’s moral conscience of Louise Brown, played beautifully by Megan Fennel and the ambitious Sid Myers, played by Trevor Loman. All three are familiar faces from The Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society’s production of Macbeth.
But the scene of the era is set before the show, as vintage cartoons and commercials from the ’50s and ’60s are displayed while the audience waits for the show to begin.
It is a really tech heavy show — more than Playgoers of Lethbridge usually does.
Luc Toupin handles the sound beautifully, which is a must as the play is as much about how sound affects viewers as it is about the characters at the agency and the paranoia of the ’60s.
a, Allister MacDonald and Theatre Outré artistic director Jay Whitehead.
