Previews and Reviews by Jeniva Berger
covering the best of the Toronto entertainment scene! Updated weekly.
November 2007
It's a Wonderful Death!
 There's always a villain at the start of any of Mysteriously Yours Mystery Theatre shows. Some have been nastier than Old Man Potter in It's a Wonderful Death! but no one has been funnier. Potter is a multi-millionaire skinflint in Fenelon Falls, Ontario who's made his money bilking the town's citizens and buying out businesses faster than you can say murder. He also owns the bank.The real Fenelon Falls, for those who aren't from those parts, has a bumper crop population of about 1800 which doesn't put Potter in the big time. But all is relative and he's about to be murdered anyway, which gives him a brief moment to make his mark. And he does. The larger than life and rather humorous Potter who looks a little like Lionel Barrymore is played by Jean Daigle, Mysteriously Yours veteran and co-writer. Daigle usually plays the villain or victim who gets bumped off early, allowing him to come back a little later as the gumshoe in charge of interrogation.
It's a Wonderful Death! is a spoof on the old Jimmy Stewart tear jerker It's a Wonderful Life, which has become as much a Christmas staple as hard candy. It does help to have a nodding acquaintance with the film since several of the characters, like Old Man Potter, are lifted from the silver screen onto the elegant interiors of the Mysteriously Yours dinner theatre. But it won't spoil your enjoyment if you haven't seen it.
The character of George Bailey, the hero of the film who owns a building and loan corporation, is also called George Bailey here, played by Laurence Prance who every now and again begins to sounds like Stewart. Bailey is a real decent guy just like his film counterpart, and his pretty wife Mary Bailey, played by Birgitte Solem, is a rock, the dream spouse of the 1940's dressed in a neat little modest dress and high heels, the good wife everyday uniform.
There's no white haired avuncular angel to come down and try and teach George that no matter how hard his earthly troubles are (George is about to be arrested after taking the blame for his kooky Uncle Billy who has lost the bank deposit money) he should never wish he wasn't born. Instead, the angel is a cop with a Scottish accent, who not only is after Potter's killer, but is keen on showing George what life without would have been like had he never been born.
The writers throw in some additional characters for color (no, the show isn't done in black and white like the film). Barb Scheffler as Violet Bick, a singer who wants to leave Fenelon Falls and head to the big city, NYC, that's North York Centre in case you were wondering. Sheffler is a good musical theatre singer and belts out "I'm Just Wild about Harry" like one of the movie stars of the 1940's technicolor musicals. There's also Randy Vancourt as Harry, a returning war hero, and Pierre Alain Trudel as the frenetic Uncle Billy.
Potter's murder investigation and the plot of It's a Wonderful Life usually intertwine neatly though there are times when the characters become confusing. The tried and true formula of audience interaction as the players introduce themselves to each of the diners at their table before the show starts, helps and is always a high point of the evening, but even after introductions what would be more helpful is a synopsis of the film.
It's a Wonderful Death! is a nice change from the average Mysteriously Yours Dinner Theatre evening and while the audience still gets to vote on who the killer is, Daigle and co-writers Brian Caws and Brian Smith, throw the audience a curve. No hints, however, you'll have to see the show yourself.
It's A Wonderful Death! marks the 20th anniversary of Mysteriously Yours. Produced by Lili and Brian Caws, the Mysteriously Yours Mystery Theatre is the most successful show of its kind in Toronto. It's no wonder. The shows are fun, the food is fine and the performers always on cue and well versed in comedy. The film it's a Wonderful Life was big on morals and George's life was important and made a difference to many people. That's heartfelt and right in the spirit of the upcoming holidays, but as the Roman slave Pseudolus said "Morals tomorrow, comedy tonight."
It's a Wonderful Death! plays at the Mysteriously Yours Mystery Theatre.
2026 Yonge St. Toronto. 416-486-7469. www.MysteriouslyYours.com/
Photo: Jean Daigle as Potter in It's a Wonderful Death
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)
June 2006
Dead Air
Despite the title, there's a lot of life in the newest Mysteriously Yours Dinner Theatre offering. Movies are a particularly delicious genre to send-up on this dinner theatre menu with some of the best being Godfather Knows Best and Murder in Casablanca . Dead Air looks beyond the silver screen at the golden oldie days of radio with everyone's favorite gumshoe of the 1940's and ‘50's, Sam Spade, but manages to sneak in a guests appearance by William Randolph Wurst, the king pin of fictitious radio station WBN. Played by Mysteriously Yours co-writer and star, Jean Daigle as Wurst, table hopping while he chomps a cigar and sports a handlebar moustache, the exuberant Wurst isn't that nice a guy, but never mind, he'll soon be gone to greater rewards than WBN. Murder is always the thing at Mysteriously Yours.
Daigle will return later as Sam Spade, ace detective, but not before we get a real taste of those wonderful days of radio with some audience members getting in on the act. Orson Kane, played by Mysteriously Yours veteran Blaine Parker, is an obnoxious director trying to make the schlock radio script into something artistic, Rory Rogers (Scotty Watson) is the singing/ yodeling cowboy with his faithful companion Pronto waiting in the wings, and Barb Scheffler did her popular routine as another ditzy dizzy bumptious blonde bombshell named Rose Bud. Did I mention that this was a musical? The clever songs written by Randy Vancourt, were not only funny, skewering everything from the romantic wartime songs to cowboy ditties, but gave the cast members a chance to show off some great vocals chords.
But just as we're beginning to appreciate the early radio days filled with 
some actual recordings of singing commercials (“You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”), station owner William Randolph Wurst threatens to pull the plug and fire everyone. Hurst is the only cast member who doesn't sing but this is clearly his swan song. His untimely demise clears the way for Sam Spade with a line of questioning that puts all of the radio show employees on the musical defensive and gives the audience time to start tabulating the clues.
Was it the tough broad station manager, daughter Patty Wurst (Rachelle Boudreau)? or Patty's page at the radio station, the baby faced Jimmy (Mark Candler)? Was it Rose Bud losing her meal ticket (let's face it, she can't act), or Rory Rogers the singing cowboy who couldn't ride a horse if it talked him into it, or Orson Kane who gives directing a bad name but is a good citizen.
Mysteriously Yours is an audience interactive evening between guests and actors and there are some hilarious moments that emerge from this fortuitous relationship. After a wonderful selection of the evening's bill of fare from Executive Chef Tony Norman and Sous Chef Didier Artus, it almost doesn't matter who killed who, why or how, but if you're really attentive and provide the right clues, you might walk away a winner. Of what remains a mystery, but the bonus is three hours of great food and good fun. It's the best guarantee in the city. Mysteriously Yours Dinner Theatre's Dead Air plays throughout the summer at selected times. For more information, tickets and reservations, please phone 416-486-7469. 2026 Yonge St. Toronto.
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)
Photos: top of piece, Jean Daigle as Sam Spade; middle right, Barb Scheffler as Rose Bud.
December
2005
Last Will and Videotape
 Welcome
to the reading of The Last Will and Testament of the Late, and
elderly, William Randolph, who was murdered. Sorry - you're not
mentioned in the will, but you may be called upon to participate
in the sleuthing. The Last Will is the latest installment of Toronto
's first class murder mystery dinner theatre, Mysteriously Yours.
And for anyone wanting an evening of sheer entertainment - no
deep thinking permitted - there's not a better way to take a break
from shopping, office parties and fruitcake during the holiday
season. Come to think of it, Mysteriously Yours evenings are an
event in themselves with you and the rest of the dinner guests
the life of the party.
There are some perks during the holiday time. If you haven't seen
the last few popular shows - CSI, Godfather Knows Best and Casablanca
, they're at Mysteriously Yours for one night stands in December,
along with the regular schedule for The Last Will and Videotape.
The Last Will and Videotape follows a popular formula for Brian
and Lillian Caws, the clever producers and co-writers of Mysteriously
Yours. We gather for a good meal in the sophisticated surroundings
of an uptown dinner club, have a drink, and exchange some pleasant
conversation with some of the colorful performers for a few minutes
while they set out their pecking order in the household of William
Randolph. We order a lovely meal from the menu thanks to chef
Tony Norman (if you want to see a sample, check into the website
www.mysteriouslyyours.com ) and then, the game's afoot.
For this Mysteriously Yours, William Randolph, the billionaire
tycoon, has already been killed when the evening starts. With
that out of the way we meet his next of kin: the nubile, wispy
voiced, very blonde be-wigged wife, Anna Nicole, played by Barb
Scheffler, who looks like a young Bette Davis in Whatever Happened
to Baby Jane, but is much friendlier and can sing up a storm;
his foxy, spoiled daughter Tawna (Laura Kyswaty) who is in love
with a smarmy porn movie producer named Joey Gecko (Larry Prance);
Alistair Shank III, an in-house lawyer played in high style by
Pierre Trudel, who walks around in a satin smoking jacket with
a martini; and a tired television comedian named Uncle Shecky
(Scotty Watson), who dresses like the Mad Hatter and tells dreadful
jokes. It's a while before our favorite inspector comedian, Jean
Daigle, makes a welcome entrance. This time Daigle's a newfie
cop (That's Newfoundland to our cross border readers) with a gift
for gab and one-liners.
One-liners are as important to Mysteriously Yours' menus as Pommery
mustard is to Chef Norman. So, in between the vaudevillian one-liners
such as “He was so old his blood type was discontinued”
(that from the cornball Uncle Shecky), sexy Anna Nicole's endearing
malapropisms, newfie cop's witticisms, and the occasional high
spirited song, is our turn to keep track of the clues. It's good
fun and even better if you guess the murderer and win yourself
a nice cap or t-shirt (never my luck), It' s a nice way to warm
up on a wintry evening. Laughter is the best medicine and Mysteriously
Yours has plenty of it.
The Last Will and Videotape is performed
at the Mysteriously Yours Dinner Theatre until March 31. 2026
Yonge St . For tickets and schedules please phone 416-486-7469,
1-800-668-3323 or www.mysteriouslyyours.com
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)
Photo: Barb Scheffler
March
2005
CSI:
Baker Street
 Imagine Sherlock Holmes solving his cases with a
test tube, cotton swab and flashlight. But no, this latest version
of the excellent Mysteriously Yours dinner theatre presentations
only pays lip service to the blood and gore CSI of television
fame. It's a clever title alright but never fear, we're right
back in the 19th century with Holmes, Watson and the mysterious
and beautiful lady who once knew Holmes back when, and so on.
As far as solving cases, forget the camera zoom in on the intestines
a la Virgil Grissom and the gang. Our Sherlock Holmes uses the
deductive approach to get to the bottom of things, setting up
the mystery, a little questioning of the suspects, a lot of audience
involvement, and first thing you know, the game is afoot.
The
plot is of course outrageous. Dr. Watson has written a tell-all
book ... which is about to published by the American entrepreneur
Harper Collier. But before you can turn a page, Collier is killed
and the whoodunnit takes on larger proportions.This takes place
after dinner. [During] dinner, the cast visits the tables and
we get a good chance to look them over and chat them up. Barbara
Scheffler's twittery Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock's housekeeper,
has the best time, especially later on when her tippling gets
the best of her. Dr. Watson [is] played with a stiff upper lip
by Blaine Parker. But there's also the outlandish
German doctor played by an invincible Scotty Watson,
the friendly copper played by Mysteriously Yours veteran Laurence
Prance, Anne Marie Shefler's glamorous
Irene Adler, once upon a time a confidence women but now reformed.
As
for Harper Collier, played by director and co-writer Jean
Daigle, he's bumped off none to soon as his booming Texas
accent is a little hard to take. Besides, he's scheduled for a
quick costume change and a return visit as Sherlock Holmes. It's
in this role as the investigator extraordinaire that Daigle shines.
His gift of comic timing is a mainstay of the company and the
interplay he has with audience members is not only funny it's
completely spontaneous. Example: "Kay is a school teacher." "What
kind?" "Elementary my dear Watson."
Mysteriously Yours, which occupies the site of the old Limelight
Theatre at Yonge and Davisville area, has a lovely night club
setting circa 1920's and a fine first class menu by chef Av Atikian.
Running about three hours if you get to dinner on time at 6:30pm,
the few hours go quickly but then time flies when you're having
fun. Produced by Lili Caws and Brian Caws, who
has co-written CSI: Baker Street along with Daigle, Scotty Watson
and the cast, Mysteriously Yours has outlived many another mystery
dinner theatre in Toronto, and once you've experienced it, you'll
know why. It's a class act.
CSI: Baker Street plays at the Mysteriously Yours Dinner Theatre
for an open-ended engagement. 2026 Yonge Street. 416-486-7469.
1-800-NOT-DEAD (668-3323.)
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)
Photo: Scotty Watson as Dr. Jerry Brookheimer in CSI:Baker
Street
November
2003
GodFather
Knows Best!
 Mysteriously
Yours Dinner Theatre is a veteran of the Greater Toronto Area
restaurant theatre circuit, only second in longevity to Stage
West whose Mississauga based productions are legit stage dramas,
comedies and musicals that have premiered and played elsewhere.
Mysteriously Yours, with its focus strictly on murder mysteries
created in house, accompanied by audience interaction, a more
than pleasant environment and a quite fine three course dinner
supervised by its own executive chef, is a first class affair.
Readers can take this imprimatur from a reviewer who has been
following the small world of murder mystery evenings for the last
25 years or more in every kind of venue from church basements
to Lake Ontario pleasure boats. I might add that the latter does
nothing for the digestion.
Fans of Mysteriously Yours will be happy to know that its latest
offering, "Godfather Knows Best," continues its tradition
of top flight entertainment done to a turn by a capable cast and
a script that sometimes suspends logic but never the laughs.
A take-off on the film classic The Godfather, the show gives the
performers a chance to burlesque the revamped Corleone family,
here called Provolone, with gusto. The audience is as important
an ingredient as the chef's presentation of his Amaretto and fig
cheesecake and become part and parcel of the Don's extended family
by taking roles in the play acting. Since our Don in the show
(Blaine Parker), giving a riotous Marlon Brando squirrel
cheek impersonation, makes his income by cheese and not olive
oil, there's a lot of lactose oriented humor. The laughs are non-stop
beginning with the Don's wacky sons and put-upon daughter: tough
guy Sonny (Laurence Prance) sporting a simulated New Jersey
accent and natty suspenders over his undershirt, just like in
the movies; dimwitted Frodo (Prance again), who carries the family
business forward by dressing up as a tangerine colored rodent
and singing the Chucky Cheese song like a Disney Mousketeer; and
tough cookie Connie (Liz Gilroy), who would really like
to take over the family business and wear the pants even if she
does dress like a 1950's prom queen.
Though we don't meet the incumbent Don, Michael Provolone, until
the end of the show, we get a good dose of his cream cheese fiancee,
pink taffeta princess Kay Mart (Birgitte Solem), who has
been frantically planning her wedding with Michael even though
she hasn't seen him in two years, and the Don's number one henchman,
adopted son Tom (Brian Smith) who hasn't managed to lose
his Irish accent.
When Sonny is bumped off at the start of the show, it gives our
man with the badge, here Jean Daigle in a now familiar
role as a wisecracking gumshoe, centre stage. Daigle, who has
co-written the script and is a numero uno veteran of Mysteriously
Yours, gives one of the best impersonations of Peter Falk's Lieutenant
Colombo, that I've seen. Rumpled raincoat, omnipresent stogie
and fly away hair, Daigle also throws in some delicious ad libs
as he works the room and interrogates the suspects, which in true
Poirot style, (another detective hero he's conquered in previous
shows,) includes everyone in the cast.
Local humor may stump anyone not familiar with Toronto's dispersed
Italian community. Michael Provolone, for instance, has been in
the Old Country for the past two years which turns out to be Woodbridge,
Ontario. Okay, I warned you. But anyone who has seen The Godfather
trilogy will understand the expediency of doing away away with
dumb cluck Frodo. "He's sleeping with the fishes," says
Tom, throwing in a bit of Mafioso metaphor referring to Frodo's
unintentional demise. "I knew he was odd," says his
father, the Don, "But that's sick."
The audience, who is called upon to collect clues and vote for
the person whom they think is the killer, supplies its own inimitable
humor which is sometimes as funny as the script. But that's the
beauty of Mysteriously Yours. In the end, we're not only voyeurs
and gourmands, but super sleuths and rising stars as well. In
the valley of the clueless, the ridiculous reigns.
GodFather Knows Best! plays until Jan. 2004 at the Mysteriously
Yours Dinner Theatre. 2026 Yonge St. 1-800-668-3323.
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)
Photo: Blaine Parker as The Don.
August
2003
Murder
In Casablanca!
 Don't
get too excited. This is not a musical version of the Bogart/Bergman
flick that titillated a million movie-goers. This may be the Casablanca
where human life is cheap and mystery and intrigue are a way of
life, but it's really Rick's Cafe Canadien on Yonge St. Toronto
(Mysteriously Yours...Mystery Dinner Theatre), where intrigue
is served as an appetizer and murder is committed after dinner
so as not to disturb the enjoyment of chef Don Shell's great gourmet
meal.
This
Casablanca is the embarkation point to Canada, so the versatile
company of actors keep telling us, which is why there is so much
anxiety to escape and get to that frozen northland. They don't
tell us why, however. It's Captain Renault who instructs us to
meet him in the alley at 11 p.m. with 150,000 French francs or
10 U.S. dollars and he'll guarantee us safe passage to Mississauga.
But before that happens Captain Renault is murdered, which is
the cue for Rick himself to start the investigation by cross examining
the suspects - the entire cast of characters - because in the
end it will be up to us in the audience to pinpoint the killer.
We rely on a storehouse of clues we've been accumulating through
the evening, dutifully writing them down on a sheet of paper handed
out to us by the waiters. The winners will get a free passage
back to the dinner theatre for another show or maybe a T Shirt.
Mysteriously
Yours shows roughly follow the same format show after show, though
the mystery themes change. The killer does as well, so whom we
choose one evening as the culprit may turn out to be an innocent
victim of duplicity tomorrow night. We have a lot of help. The
performers come around to the tables in character before dinner
starts to begin planting some well rehearsed clues. Rick himself,
here the stalwart Jean Daigle, who is always the star of
the show as the investigator - Hercule Poirot is my favorite -
in this case, Rick the owner of the infamous Cafe Canadien. Daigle
doesn't look a bit like Humphrey Bogart even with a flat American
accent, but he's funnier and as smooth as the Passion Fruit Mousse
that the Chef has whipped up.
The
shows all adhere somewhat to the original cast of characters we
saw in the film version, though the names, which have the odd
connotation of car manufacturers, have been ingeniously altered.
Here, Brian Smith plays Victor Volvo, the ever-so-understanding
patriot waiting for his letters of transit (Paul Henreid in the
film) and his wife is Ilsa Lund-Rover (Brigitte Solem).
Get it? The smoky femme fatale hanging around Rick's joint is
Mercedes (Barb Scheffler) while Blaine Parker is
Signor Ferrari. Most of the performers are capable veterans of
past Mysteriously Yours shows and handle the satire with ease.
As
the droning of the plane gets louder with Victor and Ilsa aboard
en route to Mississagua via Newfoundland, it's our cue to start
choosing who dunnit. I've never won despite all those British
mysteries I'm particularly fond of, but I figure that I'm miles
ahead anyway with a good dinner and some cheeky humor. It all
suits a rare, carefree evening where mystery and intrigue are
served up in fine style.
Casablanca plays at Mysteriously Yours... Mystery Dinner Theatre
for an indefinite run. 2026 Yonge St. 416-486-7469.
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)
Photo: Birgitte Solem as Ilsa Lund-Rover
© 2004 Jeniva Berger |
