On A First Name Basis At The Foster Festival
The Foster Festival is celebrating its ten year anniversary by reviving the play that opened their first season, Norm Foster’s artfully crafted and very funny two-hander On A First Name Basis.
David Kilbride (Jamie Williams) is a wealthy novelist whose output of spy novels have provided him with three wives, a splendid house, and a full-time housekeeper who caters to all his needs. Lucy Hopperstaad (Emily Oriold) is the no-nonsense and under-appreciated servant who has served Kilbride loyally for twenty-five years.
When On A First Name Basis opens, Miss Hopperstaad (for that is how Kilbride addresses her) is about to leave after her long shift when Kilbride, suddenly and uncharacteristically, decides it’s time they had a chat. For starters, he doesn’t even know his housekeeper’s first name.
And so begins a delicate and delicious pas de deux as Foster slowly unravels the secrets that these two people, seeming strangers to one another, have shared over the course of the years.
I hesitate to reveal more of what On A First Name Basis has in store for you. Fosters teases it all out masterfully, as old wounds are opened and new mysteries crop up along the way.
Like many of his plays, On A First Name Basis is tinged with sadness. Indeed, the underlying premise is ineffably sad. Yet Foster somehow manages to keep us laughing even as heartbreaking truths are revealed.
At one rather fraught moment, Lucy has opened a bottle of very expensive wine and is about to pour herself a glass. The horrified oenophile Kilbride gasps, “Did you let that wine breath?”
“I’m going to give it mouth to mouth,” Lucy growls in return.
If you pay attention, by the end of Act One you will have a pretty shrewd idea of where On A First Name Basis is taking you, which in no way spoils the fun. That’s because you will have guessed wrong on some of the particulars, as I did. I give Foster a lot of credit for avoiding clichés and especially for not falling into the trap of providing a “happy ending.” The ending is rueful and bittersweet, which struck me as just the right note on which to end.
I haven’t seen every Foster play – he’s written close to eighty! – but surely On A First Name Basis is one of his best.
Oriold and Williams are, respectively, the Foster Festival’s Artistic Director and Artistic Associate. I have seen them in two other Foster two-handers, The Christmas Tree and Ship To Shore. They play together beautifully and so it is here. I’m tempted to say they are the Lunt-Fontaine of the Foster Festival. (There, I said it.)
Williams makes Kilbride, who let’s face it is a bit of an ass, empathetic and, yes, even loveable. Oriold’s Miss Hopperstaad starts out brittle and ill at ease, but once she has a few belts of Scotch in her she comes into her own. She has by far the more challenging comic arc to trace as On A First Name Basis unfolds and she pulls it off brilliantly.
Old pros that they are, Oriold and Kilbride have dispensed with the services of a director. As much as I enjoyed On A First Name Basis I couldn’t help thinking that a good director (and the Foster Festival has had many of them over the years) might have coaxed the two leads to even greater heights.
Set designer Beckie Morris has created a suitably posh sitting room in the Kilbride manse and Alex Sykes has lit it nicely. Costumes by Alex Amini tell us a great deal about who these people are, which is as it should be.
On A First Name Basis continues at Ridley College’s Mandeville Theatre in St. Catherines through July 17, 2025. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Foster Festival website.
For a complete index of reviews CLICK HERE.
Don’t miss another review or blog post! SUBSCRIBE HERE
