THEATRE REVIEW: WINGFIELD LOST AND FOUND
15 JAN/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Christmas may have come and gone, but some of those warm and fuzzy feelings linger. Like the sentiment expressed in the Hugh Martin/Ralph Blane Christmas classic —  the one that goes: "Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more." Certainly, after a quarter century on Canadian stages, Walt Wingfield and the coterie of characters with whom he shares his life in the fictional Persephone Township have earned a legion of faithful friends.

And those of them that call Toronto home are certain to be drawing near at the Panasonic Theatre, where WINGFIELD LOST AND FOUND opened a  limited run on Thursday, bringing the total of city boy Walt's adventures as a gentleman farmer  to seven, preceded as it is by LETTER FROM WINGFIELD FARM, WINGFIELD'S PROGRESS, WINGFIELD'S FOLLY, WINGFIELD UNBOUND, WINGFIELD ON ICE and WINGFIELD'S INFERNO.

And in a world of ever-shifting trends and tastes, playwright Dan Needles continues to take his cue, not from the world of movies, where it seems the ante must rise in direct proportion to the number of the sequel, but from the world of television where shows like Coronation Street and As the World Turns can run for years, on the basis of serving up the same old same old. Which is good news, when the same old same old is as delightful as the ongoing adventures of Walt and his friends.

Chapter Seven opens just a few years after the ending of INFERNO, theatrical time being something pretty far removed from elapsed time, it seems. And life on Wingfield Farm continues, with Walt and his wife Maggie still struggling to make ends meet on the hobby farm they call home, with Walt commuting to the city where he still works in the stock market and Maggie splitting her time between nurturing their daughter, Hope, now a toddler, and working in a shop in nearby Larkspur.

But all is not well on Wingfield Farm, as an ongoing drought is not only killing their crops and drying up their pasture, but emptying their well, to boot. And when it finally runs dry, Walt sets out to have a new one drilled, his naiveté completely undiminished by his years of dealing with his friends and neighbours, ranging from  Maggie's stuttering brother Freddie through a crusty old curmudgeon called The Squire to a taciturn trumpet-playing dairy farmer named Don.

After pouring several thousand dollars down a dry hole, Walt tries to recruit Don's estranged father, once a renowned witcher of water, to douse his property for the best place to drill. But Don's father, a character in his own right, claims to have lost his witching touch, leaving Walt and his neighbours in the rather unique position of being up the creek without water. Of course, this being Wingfield territory, there are subplots and sub-characters and sub-disasters aplenty, all brought masterfully to life with great skill and greater affection by actor Rod Beattie, working once again under the assured direction of his brother, Douglas Beattie. So skilled are the Beattie brothers that you're likely to almost overlook an ending that feels uncharacteristically contrived.

Of course, set designer John Thompson and lighting designer Louise Guinand, do their utmost to bring Wingfield Farm to glowing life once again and happily, the simplicity of their utmost proves to be precisely what this story demands.

It is, of course, old fashioned fare, in almost every since of the word, even while it tackles thorny and contemporary issues like climate change and carbon footprint,  while sending up everything from text messaging to pest control along the way. And while it may reflect a way of life that is becoming increasingly alien to urban Canadians, it remains one of the many delightful cults that a world of multi-cult theatre allows us to embrace.

And that is reason enough, if you need it, to treasure LOST AND FOUND.