Serial Improv: Wild Heart Acres Episode 3. Fight! Fight! Battle of the Sexes

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Wild Heart Acres brings a totally new episode to the stage once a month on Thursdays. To get caught up on what’s been happening before this week’s show, click HERE.

Young Lottie and Hazel Stanley (Ariel DeRoo and Lara Simms) start Episode 3 by stealing a pony on their walk home in the blistering heat. Their father, Moses (Vance Gillis), discovers the stolen pony and punishes them immediately. They won’t be getting a bike (the live audience suggestion for the show) now that they’ve been so irresponsible. When the girls beg for mercy, Moses changes his mind and has them promise to pick up scary Old Mrs. Nelson (James McGee) at the ferry instead.

Schoolmistress Sara Thorn (Kyla Margaret) gets a visit from Moses, and a little flirtation smoulders between them. The sweetness is cut short when Emmett J. Murdoch (James McGee) steps in to announce that he is now the proud owner of the schoolhouse. Ms. Thorn’s services as a teacher will no longer be needed. Emmett’s plan is simple: the schoolhouse will be converted into a highly profitable gambling establishment. Being the gentleman that he is, he offers Ms. Thorn a job as a barmaid, if she’s worried about future employment. Offended, Ms. Thorn challenges Emmett to a fight! If she wins, the schoolhouse stays put. Spit, shake hands, and the fight is set.

Emmett returns home to tell his mother, Mrs. Murdoch (Kyla Margaret), about his plan for the schoolhouse. He manages to slip in the bit about fighting a female schoolteacher, and Mrs. Murdoch is livid. She doesn’t want Emmett to bring shame to the family if he loses, and there’s a good possibility that he will, “his being weak and all.”

Emmett enlists the help of Mr. Collins (Vance Gillis) to get him in fighting shape at his training barn, and Sara Thorn has a pre-fight showdown with Emmett’s mother. An inspired choice — Kyla Margaret plays both characters at the same time!.

Lottie and Hazel try to cross Devil River in order to pick up Mrs. Nelson, but get trapped in the leech-infested waters. Sara Thorn rescues them in time for the fight, and scrappy Hazel, no stranger to fights herself, gives Ms. Thorn a set of homemade brass knuckles from the blacksmith to help her defeat Emmett. Moses, so impressed by the girls’ behavior with Mrs. Nelson and braving Devil River, presents them with a new bike for all their effort.

Right up until fight day, Moses and Sara Thorn continue their flirtation, and he trains her to give Emmett a good blow to his primary weakness, arrogant pride. As he puts it, “Hitting below the belt, the old tick-tock, doesn’t hurt either.”
Later, the whole town gathers for the fight, and Moses reminds Sara that she has to humiliate Emmett if she wants to win. “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” from the audience, and it’s over, folks. Emmett went down like a sack with a knee to the groin and a hook from Sara Thorn!

Stay tuned for Episode 4.

<a href=”https://www.facebook.com/montrealimprov”>Wild Heart Acres’ next installment is at Montreal Improv (3697 St-Laurent) on April 17. 8:30 p.m. $8