The Red Lamp – North Frontenac Little Theatre

Reviewed by Jeff Green | Nov 30, 2022

The Red Lamp, which completed a successful three-day run at Soldiers Memorial Hall, in Sharbot Lake on Sunday (November 27), was a long-awaited event, in several ways.

It was the first full-live theatrical production for the 43 year-old North Frontenac Little Theatre (NFLT) in 4 years, since the onset of the COVID pandemic. It was also the first full production in the company’s new home in the renovated hall, after spending 40 years based in Sharbot Lake High School and then Granite Ridge Education Centre. The NFLT lighting system has been installed in the township hall and is now a shared asset with the Township of Central Frontenac, who own and operate the 100 year old hall.

And thanks to an unexpected result from research that Judy Montgomery was doing into her family heritage in Sharbot Lake, the play that the NFLT put on to mark their new life at the Sharbot Lake Hall, ended up being a fitting tribute to the hall’s own history.

Judy, who is a fan of the Little Theatre, came across a review of the Red Lamp at the new Soldiers Memorial Hall in an edition of the Ottawa Citizen from 1922. She told her friend Pam Giroux, who has been with the NFLT from the start, and just finished another stint as President. Pam talked to Jeff Siamon, who has been writing and directing for the NFLT in recent years, and he got a hold of the script for the Red Lamp.

It had a few things going for it. It is a one act play that can be performed on a single set with a relatively small cast, all good things for the small stage at the hall. It is also a comedy, which is what people need after three years of community disruption from the pandemic and public measures to keep it at bay. And the Red Lamp is in the public domain, which meant the NFLT did not have to pay royalties in order to put it on, and the not-for-profit theatre company is not exactly swimming in money these days.

But the play is 100 years old. The comedy is sometimes a bit obscure for modern audiences, and there was content in the play that may have been socially acceptable in 1922, but would not have been well received in 1972, never mind 2022.

One of the advantages of the Red Lamp being in the public domain is that it can be altered. And while he kept the basic plot intact, Siamon rewrote much of the dialogue in the play, and he added a scene and two characters in order to spice things up, much to the delight of the Sharbot Lake audience. More on that later.

The main plot line of the Red Lamp revolved around 6 characters; two sets of would-be lovers, a domineering aunt and her frustrated nephew.

This production featured a mix of long-standing Little Theatre veterans, including Karen Steele in the role of Aunt Matilda. She captured the stern veneer of Aunt Matilda well, using a sharp accent, and the body language of someone who expects to be obeyed. Steele’s finest moment in the play may have been when she learns that she has been tricked by her niece and nephew. Undaunted, she says to them, and the audience, “I knew it all along. I was just playing along.”

Haydn Hunt and Hope Andrew are High School students, playing Matilda’s nephew Harold and niece Alice, respectively. Along with learning the timing that was key to the delivery of lines in this kind of comedy, and how to communicate directly with the audience as well as their cast mates, they each brought their own stamp to their roles. For Haydn, it was a laid-back delivery of some lines during the tense moments of the play that demonstrated to the audience that he was able to stand up to his aunt when possible, and Hope Andrew was very effective at using facial expressions to bring out both the frustration and desire for change that motivates Alice. They both made their characters engaging.

Mason Moore, the third High Schooler in the play, is already an NFLT veteran. His performance in the role of the young lawyer Archie Clarke was seamless, expressing both fear of, and fearful of the wrath of Matilda, all the while preparing to run off with Alice as soon as the opportunity came up.

John Stephen, another of the NFLT veterans in the cast, made the well meaning but always self-serving Bill Worth a sympathetic character in spite of his actions, and Leana Andrew, another of the new faces for the NFLT, also captured the key elements to the role of the Deering’s maid and long lost love of Bill Worth. Near the end of the play, the way she pulls a cheque out of Worth's hand so smoothly, that he barely notices it, was one of the small pleasures of the performance.

The two extra characters that Jeff Siamon wrote into the play, were both scene stealing roles. Rudy Hollywood, who played Bill Worth’s accomplice Junior, spent much of the play poking his head out of a cedar chest at the back of the stage, getting a laugh each time, whether he was grabbing a necklace or puffing on a joint (another of the modern references added by Jeff Siamon).

Finally, when Junior gets his chance to get to the middle of the stage and enjoy a bite to eat, Martina Field, as Annette Pomade, climbs through the window, and mayhem ensues. Junior will never think of Niagara Falls the same way again.

Inserting the old vaudeville skit “Slowly I turn, inch by inch…” (check out the Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar version on Youtube) was a smart move by Jeff Siamon. Both the absurdity of its premise and the physicality and force of the performance by Field, as well as Hollywood's hapless reaction and growing fear, as she throttles him repeatedly, set off the rest of the play very well, without losing sight of the culmination of the plot, as every character gets their best outcome in the end.

The Red Lamp is a great example of ensemble acting by different generations of NFLT actors and backstage crew, thanks to the efforts of Jeff Siamon, producer Jan Levitt, stage manager Margo McCullough and assistant stage manager-prompter Linda Bush, make up artist Issy Desa, Art Holloway on lights, and Joan Hollywood backstage.

NFLT is back, happily ensconced in their new home, getting ready for their spring 2023 production.