The problem with twins, identical or fraternal, is that, more often than not, they either think too much alike or, sadly, not alike at all. Meeting in the middle is never an option.

Storytellers seem to subscribe to this real life truism and consequently often play them to both extremes.

Although not exactly the primary narrative hook behind Claudia Dey’s new whimsical comedy Trout Stanley, it is a starting point that brings about a number of side-splitting and absurd events when the lives of two sisters born moments apart are turned upside down as a stripper goes missing and a stranger arrives unexpectedly in a northern B.C. mining community.

Eda Holmes knows comical bait when she sees it. The director gives the cast enough line to produce some boisterously entertaining moments and never let’s the absurd get weighed down by the script’s poetic lure. On the reverse side, she treats the playwright’s vision filled passages like a trophy fish mounting it high for all to admire.

Michelle Giroux and Melody Johnson as the just turned 30-year-old Ducharme sisters—Grace and Sugar—are absolutely dazzling as polarized siblings who have inherited their cabin after being orphaned a decade earlier. With the town dump located right next door, Grace has little commute to deal with as the neighbourhood garbage woman. Sugar, on the other hand, sports her dead mother’s track suite like a wedding dress. Leaving the house has been somewhat problematic for her over the years.

This simplistic lifestyle all changes when a coy, shoe-sniffing drifter named Trout Stanley, played by the always-impressive Gordon Rand appears outside their window.

Most of the fun spills from the stage in Act I where Claudia Dey’s enthusiasm for the comical depth she’s reached as well as the endless possibilities of where her script can surface is unmistakable. The problems start in Act II when she just can’t snag the same kind boffo material. The story takes a 360-degree turn and the final outcome is questionably worth the wait.

Draping farcical eccentricities with lyrical beauty is no doubt the most difficult task for a writer to embark on. Trout Stanley almost spawns a great play but disappointingly gets lost up stream.