REVIEW: Hurry Hard is easy to enjoy

Theatre Burlington’s production of the play by Hamilton resident Kristen Da Silva, centring around the nationally beloved sport of curling, brings plenty of laughs, along with small-town charm.

The Canadian-penned comedy Hurry Hard is enjoying a very successful run at Theatre Burlington, one that was nearly sold-out on opening night. Humorously titled, themed to fit the nationally beloved sport of curling in the wake of this year’s Winter Olympics, and written by an increasingly popular local playwright, there’s little not to enjoy about Hurry Hard. It has the easy and entertaining spirit of a satisfying sitcom, and three performances to go over this weekend.

Bill and Sandy bonded over their mutual love of curling, and since they divorced, things have been awkward between them at the Staynor, Ont. curling club even as they have tried to get on with their lives. The upcoming regional bonspiel (tournament) and a series of unfortunate events forces them back together. If they have any hope of beating their rivals and taking back bragging rights, Bill and Sandy, Bill’s brother Terry, Sandy’s friend Darlene, as well as local heartthrob Johnny, will have to put aside their differences and unite as a team. Hurry Hard is a light-yet-heartfelt comedy about what it takes to overcome the odds, push yourself beyond your doubts and disappointments, and reach for happiness.

Hurry Hard was first produced in July 2019 by Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover. Oakville-born Kristen Da Silva is its playwright, a dozen years into a writing career that has become both prolific and popular among community theatres desiring Canadian content and fun, appealing productions for their playbills. Da Silva has a reputation for accessible, character-driven comedies like Hurry Hard. She grew up in Nobleton, Ont. and now resides in Hamilton. Her other plays include Where You Are; Beyond the Sea; The Rules of Playing Risk; Book Club; By The Light of a Story; Jacques Lake; The Bluff; Gibson & Son; Five Alarm; and Sugar Road. Hurry Hard made Da Silva a two-time recipient of the Playwrights Guild New Comedy award; her first win came with Gibson & Sons in 2016.

The Theatre Burlington production evokes a lot of hearty laughs throughout and has a very appealing, down-to-earth tone. Directed by Jerrold Karch and produced by Julie Donoahue, the set, script and performances evoke life in small-town Canada where everyone knows everyone else and it’s hard to escape your past, your ex-spouse, or your former bully.

Karch has said he’s “thrilled to be the skip of this team of players, who throw their full commitment in the delivery from end to end.” The Burlington cast includes Michael Anania as Bill, Woodrow Dixon as Terry, Jennifer Vince as Sandy, Andrea Montgomery as Darlene, and Braden Worton as Johnny.

Anania’s Bill is an “everyman,” a regular guy who works hard, has hobbies, tries his best to support his non-starter brother Terry, and has regrets about the breakdown of his marriage to Sandy. Anania, who theatre lovers might remember from his role in last year’s production of Tuesdays With Morrie at The Players’ Guild, plays Bill as a gentle, well-meaning guy who lacks confidence. He’s too much of a push-over in response to Terry’s manipulations, and it isn’t until Act Two that we understand why.

In the first act, Dixon embodies Terry as a very different “everyman” who’s easy to dislike. Full of bravado, empty promises, and sexist comments, he appears to make a habit of quitting jobs, mooching off his brother, and was connected to the breaking point of Bill’s marriage to Sandy. One of Da Silva’s strengths in this play is her ability to write dialogue that sounds like it comes from the mouths and brains of real, regular people. Everyone knows or has known a man like Terry with his boorish and unevolved chauvinism. So when Montgomery’s vivacious and outgoing hairdresser Darlene reveals that Terry bullied her years ago in school, it comes as no surprise.

Sandy, played by Vince, is an easily likable and good-humoured woman (an “everywoman,” if you will) who has enlisted Darlene to curl with her (when Darlene can stay upright!) and went on from her divorce with a can-do attitude to develop her dream of running a catering company. Darlene, ever the true friend, encourages her not to give up on love.

It’s hard not to find Worton’s Johnny hilarious. Johnny is a newer curler who happens to be completely irresistible to women. Men (like Terry and Bill) want to be him, and women (like Sandy and especially Darlene) want to be with him. He is handsome, has an easy charm, has incredible sex appeal … and is very dumb. A “himbo” is what you might call him. As a comedic foil, Johnny only works if Worton never cracks or becomes self-conscious. Worton does an amazing job at playing Johnny as a guy somewhat conscious of his magnetism but with an “aw shucks” shrug at his good fortune. And Montgomery raises eyebrows with her feral antics, hilarious and almost uncomfortably over-the-top in her desire to attract Johnny’s attention.

Running 90 minutes over two acts (with an additional 20-minute intermission), the story has more than enough elbow room to develop without overwhelming the audience. Still, Act One does seem a bit over-long. The characters show us who they are fairly early on, and so, too, is the possible conflict of not having enough team members for the regional championship curling match. By the time the act ends, having reintroduced the central conflict, we’ve seen it coming for miles, and the stakes seem muted in consequence.

I recently saw another of Da Silva’s plays at The Players’ Guild of Hamilton, Where You Are, which had a more cohesive and nuanced story while developing just as believably. Da Silva leaves some frustrating gaps here and there in Hurry Hard. How is Sandy as warm and tolerant as she is to Terry when he had a role to play in the breakdown of her marriage? She seems like a woman who would not be fond enough of an ex-brother-in-law so frequently overbearing and casually sexist as to willingly join his curling team. 

Then there's Terry and his need for a win at the bonspiel. There’s a great deal of hometown pride at stake but a win seems personal for Terry. We come to understand why in Act Two, and it opens a poignant backstory that I wish Da Silva had developed further. We’ve seen that Terry lacks awareness of his impact on others and of his responsibility over his own destiny. We learn that he’s a man with disappointed dreams but it’s unclear that he truly “learns his lesson” by the end of the play. Maybe that in itself is true to life. In the end, I suppose he learns the play’s ultimate message, that it’s amazing what you achieve when you let go of your stubborn notions and open yourself to other options.

The set, designed by Michelle Spanik and built by the hard work of the Theatre Burlington crew is charming, solid and well-appointed, looking completely the part of a well-worn small town curling arena. The bulk of the action takes place in the foyer, clubhouse and café areas of the club, while the curling is heard off stage and “seen” by the actors peering over the stage edge to the rink below, ostensibly somewhere in the audience. The pivotal competition moments are navigated through lighting, sound and the slow-motion choreography of the Staynor team jumping off and sweeping madly as an invisible rock floats across the brow of the stage. Bravo to the lighting and sound crews under leadership of designers Dan Gallo and Kim Boydell for their excellent imagining of a high-pressure curling match. 

In other Theatre Burlington news:

Theatre Burlington’s recent production of Mary’s Wedding by Stephen Massicotte has received seven out-of-festival nominations from the Western Ontario Drama League (WODL).

Nominations include outstanding production of a Canadian play, outstanding visual production, and best director for Moe Dwyer as well as best costumes for Helena Adamczyk, outstanding lighting design for Dan Gallo, outstanding set design for Michael Hannigan, and outstanding sound design for Michelle Spanik.

WODL is an organization supporting community theatre groups from Burlington west to Sarnia and north to Tobermory, Ont.. The awards will be announced May 14-17 in Hanover, Ont..

NEED TO KNOW

Hurry Hard
Continues May 1 and 2, 8 p.m. and May 2, 2 p.m.
Theatre Burlington
2311 New St., Burlington
Box office: (905) 639-7700
The run is sold out, but call the box office to be put on the wait list