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Village Squire, 1978-04, Page 41• THEATRE Codco's kooky world coming your way Even if you're sick and tired of Newfie jokes. you're still likely to enjoy the best set of Newfie jokes around. The jokers belong to Codco, and it has been called the funniest theatre troupe in Canada. It's a crazy group of actors from the island who have been breaking up people on the mainland on periodic trips for the past five years. They're making one of their rare forays into the Ontario heartland again this month for a stay in Toronto and will be making one appearance outside the city at Blyth Memorial Hall on Arpil 12. (See Around Tov,n) The company consists of Tommy Sexton, Dvaii Olsen, Mary Walsh, Greg Malone. Cathy Jones and Maisie Rillie a madcap hunch who. it is said, only get together to make a show when they run out of money and then only run the show long enough to make enough money so they can quit Codco was born in Toronto. of all places anions a group of Newfoundlanders who had come to Toronto interested in getting into theatre. They fancied Theatre Passe Muraillc's work and began hanging around there. TPM's artistic director Paul Thompson gave them some money to put together a shoe: in one of his "seed" projects. The shoe: v.as a hit and the group has been building a groMng following ever since. Sonic in Toronto, for instance, call themselves Codco groupies or addicts and they line up for tickets every time the group arrives in town. It's been a year and a half since the company last visited Toronto and some of the addicts are badly in need of a fix. Their appetite is whetted more by the stream of rave reviews the group left behind the last time for their shop: "Laugh Your Guts Out with a Total Stranger." It was the fourth show the group had brought to Toronto. The group then took some time off and many were afraid it was disbanding completely. But the group got back together, or at least all but two did. Those two are back in Newfoundland making a movie. The Codco company puts on a revue -style show with broa4 satire attacking nearly anything anywhere. They deal to a certain extent with the Newfoundland scene but also attack targets all over the world. Unlike the other well-known Newfoundland group The Mummers ' Company which is very left-wing political in its aims. Codco will attack anybody of any political or apolitical stripe. They'll even bite the hand that feeds them as they did in their last Toronto visit when they did a devastating skit satirtizing the Theatre Passe Mufaille way of putting a play together with all the actors and the director doing the creating. Not only did Theatre Passe Muraille way of putting a play together with all the actors and the director doing the creating. Not only did Theatre Passe Muraille get Codco started. it had sponsored all the Toronto tours of the group_ and, just to show there are• no hard feelings. TPM is sponsoring this show too. The touring show this time is called "More of the Same" and beyond that little is known. It isn't so much that the group is trying to keep things a secret, it's that it is notoriously unorganized when it comes to things like advance publicity. Theatre bookers often tear their hair out at the lack of concern for such things as publicity by Theatre Passe Muraille, but Codco is far more lax. They're having too much fun. Advance publicity or no, the group is sure to do well in Toronto. Just the name Codco is enough to bring wide interest thereg. Codco addicts will go hoping More of ttfe Same will include more of the satne as the hilarious soup commercial, a spoof not only of soup commercials but of commercials generally including such selling practices as the sexy, silky voice of Catherine Deneuve, here selling not Channel No. 5 but a can of soup. John Fraser, the hard -to -please theatre critic of the Globe and Mail said "There never has been anything in this country quite like Codco, the satirical troupe from Newfoundland which is blessedly back among us again" when the group visited the city in 1976. David Ossea writing in the University of Toronto's newspaper The Varsity said "The only way one can appreciate Codco is by seeing them. Their work will never be published and presented as part of a Canadian studies division of the high school curriculum...for some reason one leaves the theatre feeling that one knows the Codco company not merely as performers but as people as well; they are remarkably human, not only in their portrayals but in their stage presence." On and on the reviews go for what has got to be the most unique theatre group in the country. The fact that Newfoundland- ers get to see the group all the time and we in Ontario only occasionally is the greatest reversal of the Newfie joke. But many here are just glad they get a chance to enjoy Codco at all. ❑ "More than a decorating resource, The Raintree is an attitude." LIGHTING, WALLCOVERING, FINE ART & ACCENTS One Twenty Eight Albert, Clinton 482 3871 VILLAGE SQUIRE/APRIL 1978. PG. 39.