The Exquisite Hour

If life gives you lemons, put on a play that fea­tures a sup­posed ency­clo­pe­dia sales­woman, a lonely bach­e­lor and, of course, lemon­ade. Oh, and make sure the audi­ence is hydrated (free-of-charge!) with cute lit­tle glasses of the refresh­ing cit­rus bev­er­age before the show begins. Such is the pre­rog­a­tive of Rele­phant Theatre’s pre­sen­ta­tion of Stew­art Lemoine’s short play, “The Exquis­ite Hour.”

Set in the early 1960s, wit, whimsy and a minor dose of nos­tal­gia are stuffed into this hour-long two-hander, which pro­vides the audi­ence with a good many laughs and even a few rather ten­der moments.

Josue Labou­cane is fan­tas­ti­cally uptight and nerdy as the bach­e­lor Zachary Teale, whose back­yard the whole play takes place in. And Nevada Yates Robart plays the enthu­si­as­tic ency­clo­pe­dia sales­woman, Mrs. Dari­mont, with such a bal­ance poise and neu­roses that we’re not sur­prised to dis­cover more than we bar­gained for in her. A nod must be given to direc­tor Julie McIsaac as she pro­vides a strong cohe­sive­ness and momen­tum to the piece as a whole.

Lemoine’s words are so hilar­i­ously chalk full of pop-cultural and his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences, that we not only get swept up in the blur of plot and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, but we might also learn a thing or two about a Catholic Saint with a hal­lu­ci­na­tory ded­i­ca­tion to ani­mals and nature or a Euro­pean royal fam­ily who names all of their men Fred­er­ick and all their women Agnes.

Played out in real time, “The Exquis­ite Hour” is an hour of the­atre that does great things with a cer­tain prover­bial sour citrus.

The Exquis­ite Hour
Part of the Van­cou­ver Inter­na­tional Fringe Fes­ti­val
Carousel The­atre
Remain­ing Per­for­mances:
Sat­ur­day Sept 18, 7:45 pm
Sun­day Sept 19, 4:00 pm