By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

I saw the Côte St. Luc Dramatic Society’s latest production of The Wizard of Oz on its opening night Saturday May 31 and it was a most enjoyable experience.

The production came up with interesting methods for the parts of the 1939 colour movie classic that included special effects. The cast, led by Sophie Eiser as Dorothy as part of Cast A (there are two sets of casts) and including Mayor Mitchell Brownstein as the Wizard and his brother Herb as Uncle Henry, was delightful. Some of the cast, particularly the Cowardly Lion (James Alloul), the Tinman (Jonah Zoldan) and the Scarecrow (Dawson Barman-Tao), not only resembled the original actors, but all offered a mix of 1930s style movie dialogue inflections and some clever and humorous added lines of a more modern nature. The many musical numbers were delightful as well.

As director Anisa Cameron pointed out to us in a recent interview, the play reinstated the Jitterbug sequence that was cut out of the 1939 movie, and it was fun and jazzy. Fun applies to the production as a whole.

The CSLDS production runs until June 15 and can be seen at the Harold Greenspon Auditorium at the Bernard Lang Civic Centre. For more information and for tickets, go to www.csldramaticsociety.com.