Review: JOIN CANADA, EH? at Lighthouse Artscape

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, and please don’t trample me with a moose.

I’m a dual Canadian-US citizen. So is my spouse. For those of us who have been watching our secondary country dissolve into internal madness while simultaneously striking out at Canada like a toddler having a tantrum in the maple syrup aisle of a grocery store, things have been feeling a little like the Twilight Zone. “Elbows Up,” say the headlines, and we dutifully vote and protest, while being constantly aware of how terribly our family members and friends across the border are suffering from policies they never wanted.

With all this geopolitical chaos in our own backyard, laughter is hard to come by, especially at these exchange rates. JOIN CANADA, EH?, a new sketch comedy show at Lighthouse Artscape theatre, promises the solution to our international malaise: let’s simply invite the United States to join us as the 11th province and live under our dictates for a while. With a veteran cast of Second City alumni amongst its performers and writers, there’s plenty of entertainment here; occasionally pointed, but never too caustic, the troupe’s jokes make gentle fun of America and Canada alike, and will have you laughing in a New York minute…I mean, a Heritage Minute. And hey, as a night out, it might be cheaper than a few cartons of American eggs.

JOIN CANADA, EH? began as an online social experiment where Americans were asked to cast their votes to become the newest province, garnering over a million votes with participants from all 50 states. With that American hunger for poutine (or, perhaps, socialized medicine) in mind, Dale Boyer, Aurora Browne, Alastair Forbes, Natalie Metcalfe and Kris Siddiqi begin with a rousing, pro-Canadian anthem, praising our country’s virtues and entreating the US to become one of our future selling points. The evening follows the general tried-and-true Second City-style format of sketches, one-liners, callbacks, and occasional audience participation wrapped up in a few songs. It works there, and it works here.

Compared to the rest of the sketches by Metcalfe, Kyle Dooley, Jan Caruana, and writer-director Reid Janisse, the opening’s a little bland, getting most of the stereotypes out of the way in rhyming fashion and mostly buoyed by Browne’s strong alto belt. Luckily, there are many less schlocky, more creative takes on the US-Canada divide to come, including a Romeo and Juliet-style Niagara Falls romance, a gaggle of Canada Geese in adorable minimalist costumes who don’t know whether they want to winter down south anymore, a cage match between beloved literary heroines, and a look into the dark side of Trader Joe’s, all of which juxtapose two or more different media genres to produce plenty of laughs at the dissonance.

It would be easy to become holier-than-thou in making fun of the United States, but this is as much of a show about laughing at Canadians’ foibles as it is about warmly stoking our own nationalism. A particularly entertaining moment involves the delicate and hypocritical dance of boycott negotiation, where Boyer and Forbes weigh the pros and cons of purchasing various snacks produced by US corporations. Speaking to the complexities of cross-border industries while also being completely silly, the sketch asks where we draw our line in the sand (of Lake Ontario) when it comes to what we buy or don’t.

Another sketch, a PSA for the Canadian healthcare system, really becomes an interrogation of whether we believe that anyone has a right to free healthcare, even if they’re “at fault” for their own misery—or maybe it’s just an excuse to hear Siddiqi talk about his behind.

The show also ably capitalizes on nostalgia, with an unhinged take on Body Break that has Metcalfe practically frothing at the mouth in patriotism, and a series of our beloved Heritage Minutes. (I dare you not to have a Pavlovian reaction when music director Nicole Byblow busts out the Hinterland Who’s Who.) It's all scored to a rocking Cancon soundtrack, from Bran Van 300 to Rush to The Weeknd.

And the audience participation’s fun too, whether it’s simply shouting out the name of Canadian celebrities for the cast to satirize or the show’s centrepiece judgment of what state gets to become part of Canada, dating game-style, as Forbes’ increasingly put-upon host leads two duos in classic improv games of synchronization.

So, this Canada Day week, you might as well “Buy Local” by supporting Canada’s number-one export: comedians.