Dirty Rotten Scoundrels At The Stratford Festival
I saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels when it premiered on Broadway in 2005 and didn’t care for it very much. Twenty years later, at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre, I found I liked it even less.
Here’s what I had to say in 2005 (substituting the names of performers in the Stratford outing):
“Based on the hit movie of the same name, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels tells the tale of Lawrence Jameson (Jonathan Goad), a suave, vaguely English con man who, with the aid of a corrupt chief of police (Derek Kwan), has had an illustrious career bilking rich women like Muriel Eubanks (Sara-Jeanne Hosie) out of their money on the French Riviera. His idyllic life is thrown into disarray with the appearance of Freddy Benson (Liam Tobin), a distinctly down-market but nonetheless successful American version of Lawrence. When Freddy begs to learn from the master, apprenticeship turns to rivalry and a heartless bet to con the seemingly guileless American Soap Queen, Miss Colgate (Shakura Dickson) out of fifty grand.
“So what’s not to like?
“For starters, David Yazbek has contributed a score that leans heavily to pastiche, parody, and patter songs. It is seldom more than serviceable. As a lyricist, he aspires to be a sort of potty-mouthed Cole Porter and succeeds only intermittently.
“Jeffrey Lane‘s book is filled with the sort of lame “like-a-jokes” that have become standard sitcom fare. A sample:
“Her family is in oil.”
“Crude?”
“Well, she is a bit pushy.”
“[Insert rim shot and laugh track here.]
“The script often seems strained and pro forma, nowhere more so than in the romantic subplot (Kwan and Hosie) that here seems as stuck on and misplaced as a wayward tail in a game of pin the tail on the donkey.
“On the surface, it would seem that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has much in common with The Producers and should have much the same appeal. Both, after all, involve a mismatched male team involved in frankly illegal behavior. But where Max and Leo are lovable, Lawrence and Freddy are merely larcenous. To borrow a line from the show, which borrowed it from the film, which, I strongly suspect, stole it from somewhere else: “What they lack in grace, they more than make up for in vulgarity.” Deprived of any real soul, Lawrence and Freddy are forced to fall back on style and schtick.”
While I am not a fan of the material, I see the attraction Scoundrels has for theatrical producers. The trick is handling the rather ham-fisted material with a carefully calculated touch.
Director Tracey Faye seems to have taken to heart that old MTV commercial in which Mick Jagger pronounces “Too much is never enough.” I mean, why sing a song when you can scream it? That’ll make it more exciting, right? Especially given Ranil Sonnadara’s aggressively miked sound design? And why let the off-color and obscene humor just do its thing when you can hammer it home over and over? That’ll make it funnier, right?
Choreographer Stephanie Graham is more successful, especially when she is setting a tone of soigné elegance for Scoundrel’s Riviera setting. She has also provided carefully designed routines for those principal performers who weren’t dance majors at Juilliard.
When I reviewed Stratford’s 2023 production of Spamalot, I described Liam Tobin as “a handsome and statuesque newcomer to Stratford [who] makes a magnificent Sir Galahad.” You’d never guess that from seeing his turn as the low-brow, low-down, goofball Freddy. Yucky and scatological though some of the shtick he is called upon to perform may be, it’s a brilliant performance.
Jonathan Goad as Jameson and Shakira Dickson as “Soap Queen” Christine Colgate are perfectly fine, although neither manages to outshine their Broadway predecessors.
Sara-Jeanne Hosie brings a welcome verisimilitude to the supporting role of Muriel Eubanks and she is all the more effective and funnier for it.
The sets (Lorenzo Savoini), costumes (Sue LePage), and lights (Michael Walton) all worked extremely well, which is what one comes to expect of a Stratford production.
My journalistic integrity, such as it is, compels me to note that I seemed to be alone in my downbeat assessment of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The sold-out house the night I saw the show absolutely loved it!
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels continues at the Avon Theatre through October 25, 2025. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Stratford Festival website.
Footnote: One of the best touches of humour in the show is to be found in the programme’s “Audience Alert” which assures us that “The plot uses humour to explore and expose stereotypes about gender and disability.” See? We’re not being sexist or, heaven forfend, mocking people with mental disabilities. We’re involved in the noble pursuit of exploring and exposing stereotypes.
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