Mac Olsen
Express Staff
Introducing Crocodile Dundee, Teen Wolf, Pee-wee Herman, Jessica Rabbit and the rest of the 80’s all-star cast!
LAHF Troupe held their great whodunnit dinner mystery theatre at the Jean Cote community centre on Feb. 24, the first of two performances, with the second held on March 3.
This year’s production is entitled ‘Like, Oh My Gosh … It’s a Murder’, with the crime taking place at Ozzy Osbourne’s mansion.
Many hours of work went into this production.
“It’s a group effort,” says Director Lise Poirier. “It took the full two months to do the decorations and the tables.”
The hall was elaborately decorated in an 80’s theme. The walls were adorned with ‘Pac-Man’ and ‘Super Mario Bros’ videogame characters and the guest tables had themes like ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Sesame Street’.
The 80’s music added to ambience.
Pee-wee Herman, played by Jason Talbot, offered guests an “Electric Popsicle” as they entered the hall, which was LAHF Troupe’s version of a melon orange shooter.
Each performance consisted of a four-act play and a three-course meal. The Grade 12 students of Ecole Heritage helped serve the dinner and handled the coat check.
Many guests wore 80’s attire and there were prizes for best dressed male, female and couple for each performance.
Each performance opened with Bob Mackenzie’s monologue about this and that, and sometimes his brother Doug phoned him to “set the record straight” with him.
As the curtains open, we see Ozzy and Elvira having a discussion, and gradually other characters enter and make their prescence felt.
There’s plenty of gossip about Crocodile Dundee, played by Madeleine Jordan. We here from the characters, and the plot points are set up about who is with whom, or who has certain knowledge.
Crocodile Dundee gets into a scrap with Ozzy Osbourne and a few others.
There’s adult-themed humour with a local flavour found throughout each act, which had the audience laughing hard time and again.
Sound effects from old cartoons punctuate the moments of hillarity.
And we get some musical entertainment from Madonna played by Doris Druin, Cindy Lauper played by Lynn Florence, and others.
By act two, things are spinning out of control at Ozzy’s mansion and Crocodile Dundee meets his fate.
Then the accusations and fur let loose. Who murdered Crocodile Dundee?
Interwoven with the accusations and plotting were several singing performances.
Cindy Lauper (Lynn Florence) led the cast in singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ and Madonna (Doris Drouin) had her ‘Vogue’ moment with them.
Mr. T (Alain Johnson) and Jessica Rabbit (Shayleen Johnson) performed a duet to ‘Love Shack’.
Paul Reubens would have been proud of Jason Talbot’s performance. He had the Pee-wee Herman persona downpat, including the clothing, voice and movements.
Mr. T’s racous manner was evident in the play, with Blanchette perfecting the ‘Pity the poor fool!’ motif and gruff voice.
Brenda Tailleur stole the show with her Mork from Ork presence, literally taking to heart the offering of a vegetable as a sign of friendship and giving it human feelings.
But all of the cast members offered their hillarious antics on cue and, in return, the audience offered their laughter and applause in appreciation.
At the end of each night, the audience voted for whom they thought murdered Crocodile Dundee.
