Funnyman Lawrence Smythe plays “The Caretaker”

Canadian family entertainer Lawrence Smythe will bring his hilarious new one-man show, “Mr. Smythe: The Caretaker” on Friday, Oct. 13.

Curtain time for “Mr. Smythe: The Caretaker” is 7 p.m. in Marvel Theatre. “Mr. Smythe: The Caretaker” is the first event in the 2006-2007 Kaleidoscope Family Series at Rockefeller Arts Center and is sponsored by Bahgat and Laurito-Bahgat, Certified Public Accountants.

For tickets, please visit the Central Ticket Office at SUNY Fredonia or call 716-673-3501.

“Mr. Smythe: The Caretaker” casts 28-year comic veteran Lawrence Smythe as a bumbling, lovable janitor whose hyperactive imagination allows him to find amusing new uses for the contents of a garbage can. Mr. Smythe utilizes his impressive talents in music, mime, mask, illusion. clowning and improvisation to create a character that earns big laughs from the audience while simultaneously teaching an important lesson about recycling.

“It’s an extremely urgent issue,” he said. “Right now, I feel like anything about the environment is very timely. This is our only planet, after all — it’s where we live.”

Mr. Smythe previously appeared at Rockefeller Arts Center in 2000 as a member of the comic duo Smythe and Saucier. A world traveler inspired by the work of such legendary comedians as Buster Keaton, Red Skelton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, Mr. Smythe is a firm believer in the theory that everyday life provides the best source of comedic material.

“The funniest things are the most natural things,” he said in a recent interview. “That’s where this character comes from. I just thought of all the funny things I could do with a broom, or with all of the different things I could find in the garbage can.”

Mr. Smythe recalled a time he was working as a masked street performer in San Francisco and thought, for a few brief moments, that his act was creating a big buzz with passing pedestrians.

“Then I took off the mask,” he said, “and I realized everyone was actually watching a custodian, who was standing a few yards away, who was doing his own little dance. He wasn’t even a performer, but he was getting bigger laughs than me! You tend to remember those things.”

When he needed a character for a one-man show in time for the Winnipeg International Children’s Festival in 2003, Mr. Smythe found himself drawn back to the idea of a colorful custodian.

“I had an idea for a character, a guy who was supposed to be out there setting up the show,” Mr. Smythe explained in a recent telephone interview. “At first, I thought, maybe some kind of technician. But then I thought, a caretaker would be perfect — an off-kilter, working-class kind of guy.”

The Kaleidoscope Family Series at Rockefeller Arts Center will also include folk favorite Tom Chapin and Friends on Friday, Feb. 2 and the Theatreworks/USA adaptation of Broadway’s “Seussical” on Friday, March 16.