In Stratford's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, never before has cheering for the bad guys been so fun

Globe and Mail

2 days ago

Title: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Written by: Jeffrey Lane and David Yazbek
Performed by: Shakura Dickson, Jonathan Goad, Liam Tobin, Sara-Jeanne Hosie, Derek Kwan, Michele Shuster
Director: Tracey Flye
Company: Stratford Festival
Venue: Avon Theatre
City: Stratford
Year: Until Oct. 25, 2025
Critic's Pick
The Stratford Festival sure seems to have a thing for the French Riviera. Last year, the fest's Avon Theatre was transformed into La Cage aux Folles's colourful Saint-Tropez nightclub. Now, just six months after that soft hug of a musical closed, the theatre has once more been vaulted to warmer climes with a gangbuster production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – complete with many, many palm trees.
One of the early 2000s' lesser-produced musicals, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the eponymous musical adaptation of Frank Oz's 1988 film, is a hoot and a half – and its relative obscurity suggests that most audience members will get to enjoy the twists of its story and score. David Yazbek's songs, equal parts catchy and clever, teem with earworms and sneaky double entendres – good luck getting the musical's penultimate Dirty Rotten Number out of your head when you leave the theatre.
The show's basic premise is quite simple: Lawrence Jameson (Jonathan Goad) is a con man worthy of Saul Goodman, living large in an expensive villa on the sea. His chummy accomplice Andre Thibault (Derek Kwan) helps him to steal women's jewellery and cash – it doesn't hurt, risk-wise, that Andre is the resort town's chief of police.
When one day a younger cad appears on the scene, a syrupy southern drawl on his lips, Lawrence realizes his reign as the Riviera's chief sleaze might be in danger. And so, reluctantly, he takes Freddy Benson (Liam Tobin) under his wing. A perfect mark soon appears – soap heiress Christine Colgate (Shakura Dickson) – and before long, a strange love triangle emerges between the coast's most vile swindlers and its sweetest, most generous guest.
Of course, chaos ensues.
Jeffrey Lane's whip-smart book, though somewhat devoid of authentic pathos, is surprising, edgy and nimble, resulting in a vibrant, uncomplicated musical that hardly feels its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Originally slated to be directed by the late Bobby Garcia – the run is instead dedicated to his memory – Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is instead efficiently steered by Tracey Flye.
It's a highly enjoyable yet imperfect production. Stephanie Graham's choreography is at times overly busy, and Ranil Sonnadara's sound design could use a few tweaks. Particularly at the top of the show, Yazbek's lyrics have a habit of getting lost in the brass. (That's not helped by the actors' faux accents – Kwan's French joual, in particular, is often quite muffled.)
Acting-wise, Flye's cast simply flies – Goad and Tobin work in terrific synchronicity, and Dickson, charming as ever, doesn't broadcast the musical's cheeky ending before it arrives. Sara-Jeanne Hosie's Muriel, too, is funny and swank.
Musically, the production is less consistent – opening night sound issues aside, Dickson's belted high notes are occasionally a hair flat. Goad, too, often approximates songs' notes rather than landing squarely on them.
Tobin, meanwhile, saddled with the show's most demanding song-and-dance numbers, gleams in the role of Freddy – he's reliably tuneful and relentlessly witty. Michele Shuster is another standout in the impactful side role of Jolene Oakes – it's a shame we don't see her much after the first act.
On the technical side of the Riviera, Lorenzo Savoini's attractive set makes a fab playground for the titular scheming scoundrels. Sue LePage's costumes, on the other hand, occasionally feel a touch random, neither anchoring the show in any particular time period nor telling us much about the characters wearing them.
These are all fairly minor gripes, though, for what's so far been the most watchable of the Stratford Festival's four openings this year. Yes, the show shares more than a few similarities with last year's La Cage aux Folles, and that show wore its heart on its sleeve in a way I found myself missing here – at a certain point, laughing at oily thieves starts to feel a bit icky in the absence of less superficial subplots. (A budding romance between Muriel and Andre, played almost entirely for laughs here, tries to fill that gap, but only to moderate success.)
On the whole, though, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a damn good time, a creative programming choice that's been given a hilarious, mostly well-executed production by Flye and her team. In all truth, I'll probably catch it again before it closes this fall: Never before has cheering for the bad guys been so fun.