There’s no better inspiration for Toronto-based playwright Kat Sandler than real-life political drama, and the timing for her shows, set to open in Alberta, couldn’t be better.
“In Alberta, in the States, in Ontario… everyone’s making mistakes left, right and centre,” Sandler said with a laugh, noting it wasn’t certain a real-life provincial election would be called during the run of her new plays in Edmonton.
Her two political comedies The Candidate and The Party open to the public on April 4.
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The Party is set at a political fundraiser and birthday party for an ultra-rich lobbyist, while The Candidate happens nine months later on the eve of the election.
Sandler says she loosely based the characters on real politicians.
“The 2016 election just blew my mind,” Sandler explained. “You cannot make that stuff up. You can’t.”
“It’s horrible and funny all at the same time… and that’s really where I like to sit, in terms of comedy.”
“So the effect of seeing both plays is you can get a full story. You can kind of find out what happened to characters from The Party in The Candidate, or you can go back in time from The Candidate to The Party to see where it all began,” Sandler said.
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What makes the plays so cutting edge is the fact they happen concurrently, with the cast of 10 actors sprinting from one theatre to the other several times during the shows.
Thom Allison plays Marky, a drag performer with a political TV show, and partner of the candidate, a leading role played by Edmonton’s Jesse Lipscombe.
The fastest actor can make the sprint between theatres in 45 seconds. In heels, it takes Allison a minute-and-a-half, running up six flights of stairs and through a public lobby from The Party to The Candidate sets.
To smooth out arrivals, the cast relies on comedic improvisation.
“In these times, to laugh that hard is pretty great. So it’s funny and it’s racy too,” Allison explained.
Nothing is off the table in this raunchy political farce.
“The reality of it is both terrifying and hysterical,” said Allison.
The Party and The Candidate run at the Citadel Theatre until April 21.
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