Starring Nicholas Campbell and Raoul Bhaneja. Rated PG. Opens Friday, April 29, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas

Some fine Canadian actors get a workout in this ensemble piece that lightly joshes the theatre world without adding up to quite enough fun for nonthespians.

A Wake has a nifty concept. A Hungarian-Canadian drama tyrant played by Nicholas Campbell (Da Vinci himself, letting his eyebrows do the work) has built a workshop world around himself in the rural Ontario town where this entire tale takes place. When he suddenly croaks, his followers gather to cry, moan, and snipe at each other over the coffin in his living room.

Ensconced in the snowbound retreat for a couple of days are his recent wife (hard-to-understand Tara Nicodemo) and his worn-out administrator (Martha Burns), both working out the details of an ad-hoc funeral. Returning from lives elsewhere are a successful TV actor (Graham Abbey), a forlorn single mom (Krista Sutton), a trashy actor stuck in the ’80s (Sarain Boylan), and a bitter comic foil (cast standout Raoul Bhaneja) with a grudge against our absent hero. The Great Man’s neglected son (Kristopher Turner) only shows up by coincidence and goes into a particularly aggressive kind of shock at the news.

Unfortunately, the promise of zippy repartee and tearful revelation isn’t quite fulfilled as the actors improvise dialogue that mostly hits obvious points when not escalating into outright farce. This usually involves Boylan’s sex-addicted character, who yells at everyone when she isn’t screwing them. Attempts by Vancouver director and cowriter Penelope Buitenhuis to darken the tone don’t really work, just as the cast’s various styles fail to mesh, with quieter players like Turner and Abbey being drowned out by group noise.

Still, for such a loosely assembled affair, the film is stunningly well shot by Quebec cinematographer Franí§ois Dagenais.