Attachments: An Email Affair - More of a small town affair, really

I'll be frank right off the top here; this kind of theatre isn't my cup of tea. Actually, I'm one of those guys who thinks theatre shouldn't resemble tea in any way at all, I want it to feel at the very least like a stiff shot of cheap tequila, and at best like a syringe full of epinephrine straight to the heart.

But if you prefer yours like a nice warm cup of easy-to-swallow English Breakfast with a hint of zest, and if you toss the term "thespian" around without a hint of irony, and if you didn't get that Waiting for Guffman was a parody, then you stand a good chance of being thoroughly entertained by Attachments: An Email Affair. 

It's the first effort from this company, and indeed the first attempt at a play script by its two writers; Larry Herscovitch and Deborah McDonald. This is evidenced by some aspects of the script. At 90 minutes it's way too long for its central conceit: 32 year-old virgin boy meets girl by pretending to be a girl on an e-dating site to learn how boys impress girls; girl pretends to be a boy online for the same reasons...plausibility is never a consideration here. And the obviousness of many of the 'reveals' is a little too intelligence-insulting at times, but the authors are clearly well-steeped in the tenets of farce, and have really nailed the set 'em up and knock 'em down rhythms of the form. The script has never met a sexual innuendo that it didn't like and isn't shy with the randiness (Dildos! Cleavage! Naughty, naughty!) The storyline plays second fiddle to the character's well-paced nudge-nudge, wink-wink banter anyway, and any script that features a sherry spit-take isn't hiding who its intended audience is.

The actors all work together extremely well, they're comfortable and tightly in synch, and all have the same bouncy, musical theatre energy. They are clearly all in the same play. Well, perhaps with the exception of writer Herscovitch who appears in an extraneous supporting role, but honestly, his inexperience just comes off as cute.

The 'quaint' factor of this production is almost unbelievable. I felt for all the world like I was watching a community play up in somewhere like Salmon Arm. From the neighbourly support emanating from the audience in the rod and gun club-like Cambrian Hall at Main and 17th, to the production's offer to drive any of us back to the Festival on Granville Island "if we needed a lift" (I kid you not), the whole affair seemed worlds removed from the post-ironic socio-political realism and web activism that headquarters in that very neighbourhood. It was sort of an oasis of small-town idealism in the middle of the city, and it's certainly not trying to be relevant to a theatre-curious audience looking to discuss the way the world's moving. Attachments was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

A Laughing Matters Production. Directed by Dale Kelly. Starring Andrew Chandler, Lisa Cloutier, Heidemarie Guggi, Sue Sparlin and Larry Herscovitch

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