Lauchie, Liza & Rory is a show everyone should see before they die.

It touches on all the bases of everyday life with humour, sorrow and ingenious, playful staging.

First created in 1997, this version of the internationally touring hit features Mairi Rankin’s keening fiddle, often as a lament. It’s a beautiful fit to the mood and traditional Cape Breton culture of the show.

Lauchie, Liza & Rory, set in 1940s Cape Breton and based on a Sheldon Currie short story, is about two identical twins who are miners and live in a company house with their very proper, widowed mother, who took up Scrabble in bitterness after her husband was killed in the mine, and their very practical sister Anne, who acts as a narrator.  (photo by Ted Pritchard)

When the daredevil Rory leaves on a bender and doesn’t come home for months, Anne chases the dull Lauchie out of the house to the bingo hall where he meets the lively and lovely Liza. They decide to get married just when Rory crashes back into their lives and into Liza’s heart.

Natasha MacLellan, in a role first created by Burgundy Code, has a wonderful fluidity and natural quality as an actor. She brings an honesty and depth to her multiple parts, from the giddy party girl Kitty to the light-hearted and sorrowful Liza.

Christian Murray, who has been in Lauchie, Liza & Rory since 2003, has carefully honed his two versions of the twins for convincing characters and rapid, near invisible changes.

The genius of Lauchie, Liza & Rory is the storytelling style first created by current director Mary-Colin Chisholm, with actors Burgundy Code and Mike Petersen, at Festival Antigonish.

The boys’ mother is a picture frame on a pole attached to a wheeled platform.

Murray and MacLellan switch as the pinched-up, rapid-talking face in the frame. Sometimes they are standing out of the frame as other characters and open and close their fist within the frame to mouth mother’s words.

Without giving it all away, there are many simple and inventive stage “tricks” like this that make the show so magical. The card game, where Murray plays both Rory and Lauchie and MacLellan rapidly raises and lowers her glasses and alters her face between Anne and Liza, is a virtuosic performance.

Still, for all its stage magic, it’s the heart of the story that stays with you and the music, first added for a Celtic Colours show, holds onto the heart.

Stephen Osler has designed a new set for easy touring of a woven backdrop of a house, like a kids’ paper weave, in nostalgic blues. It becomes a form both for the palette of Leigh Ann Vardy’s lights and for the imagination to add detail.

Eastern Front Theatre’s presentation of the award-winning Frankie Productions show at the Bus Stop Theatre, 2203 Gottingen St., is a chance to see this much-loved play before it goes next April to the National Arts Centre. It runs about 70 minutes without intermission to April 18, with weekend matinees at 2 p.m. and evening shows at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $30, $25 for seniors, DND and arts workers and $15 for students at 463-PLAY, online at easternfronttheatre.com or at the door one hour before showtime.

As Anne tells the audience about her sad tale, “You’ll laugh you head off because it didn’t happen to you.”

( ebarnard@herald.ca)