The Spice of Life

Leithelle Productions —CCFM Salle Pauline-Boutal

A satire of one of the longest running forms of television entertainment, the American soap opera, The Spice of Life had no shortage of tropes to pull from. And pull it did. In the presumably picturesque Savory City, everyone is sleeping with everyone, chronology is irrelevant, and moguls have no shortage of schemes and leverage. The cast was expansive, allowing for endless familial ties and giving the feel of walking into a serial halfway through when the writers have started to write themselves into a corner. Soap operas aren’t my thing, so I wasn’t expecting to get much out of the gags, but the camp inherent to the genre carried a lot of them. That being said, the commitment to the bit was lacking from some performances; it would have been nice to see a run with absolutely no fear of overacting. After all, that’s not possible in this genre. This, combined with missed cues from both performers and tech, made for a bumpy experience that would do well with ironing out.

Arden Pruden