All photos by T. Charles Erickson
There is farce, and then there is farce! The Westport Country Playhouse is
currently offering a farce in the form of “Room Service,” while Long Wharf Westport effort often fails to
engage, for numerous reasons, Long
Wharf
Adapted from a 1911 Carl Sternheim
play by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve
Martin), the play’s premise is a simple one: what would happen to a
middle-class couple living in Dusseldorf, Germany, circa 1910, if the wife,
Frau Louise Maske (Jenny Leona) just happened to unintentionally drop her
drawers (caused by the break of a single string) while watching a parade in
honor of, and featuring, the king? Well, Frau Maske’s husband, Theo (the
delightfully excitable Jeff McCarthy), a mid-level bureaucrat, is beside
himself: his wife’s underpants dropped for all the world, including the Kaiser,
to see! What will happen to his career? What will happen to his good name? Oh,
the shame of it all. (“In broad daylight, on a city street, you are standing
out in public and your underpants fall down. I can’t believe this happened to me!”)
Well, the incident does draw
attention, but not of the type Herr Maske (yes, read “mask,” as in we weave a
mask so as to present our ‘best’ selves to society) is fearful of. You see, the
Maske’s have a room to rent, and soon a turn-of-the-century lounge-lizard named
Frank Versati (a wonderfully louche Burke Moses) knocks on the Maske’s door seeking
shelter and, as soon as Theo absents himself, proceeds to protest his somewhat
oleaginous love for Frau Maske. She is shocked, but also intrigued, and her interest
is egged on by the Maske’s upstairs, eavesdropping neighbor Gertrude (a droll Didi Conn
Didi Conn and Jenny Leona
Frau Maske’s wardrobe malfunction
has also drawn the attention of Benjamin Cohen (Steve Routman), a man equally
interested in the room to let who, when Herr Maske questions his name, swears
that it is spelt with a “K” (thus introducing a darker side to the proceedings,
for it will be a scant three decades before the issue of Cohen’s religion will
take on horrific meaning). Cohen immediately sizes up the situation vis-à-vis
Louise and Versati and decides he must stay to defend her honor (and also, in
his own mouse-like way, nibble at it).
Burke Moses
Thus the stage is set for some
classic farce, with the husband all but oblivious to the intentions of Versati
and Cohen – Herr Maske is so wrapped up in ‘self’ and so sure of his dominant
position in the husband-wife relationship that the dual sieges on his wife’s
‘honor’ go all but unnoticed by him.
Louise flutters under Versati’s
attention and, in a truly comic scene, finally falls, only to have the
poet-manqué, at his moment of triumph, rush off to compose an ode. This follows
an equally hilarious scene in which Louise administers a sleeping potion to
Herr Cohen to clear the way for her tryst with Versati. Herr Cohen’s
wobbly-legged exit up some stairs and through a door (yes there are a
sufficient number of doors to allow for the usual farcical door-slamming) is
priceless – sheer physical comedy in the classic tradition of all the great
silent film comics – Chaplin could not have done it better.
Jeff McCarthy and Steve Routman
Adding to the controlled chaos is
another man in search of a room, one Herr Klinglehoff (George Bartenieff), a
straight-laced, elderly gentleman unaware of the ‘underwear’ incident, who
merely wishes sedate shelter but will be shocked by the eventual goings-on
under the Maske’s roof (including the presentation by Gertrude to Louise of
underwear sewn in the colors of the German flag).
What seemed missing in the
Playhouse’s production of “Room Service” – the actors truly becoming their
characters rather than just representing them – is in “The Underpants” fully
realized. There really isn’t a single false moment in the evening. McCarthy is
wonderful as the blustering, self-important Theo, a husband who abhors change
and is proud of the fact that he is, in fact, nothing more than a clerk, yet, when
at home, the Kaiser of his castle.
George Bartenieff
Leona is lovely, lithe and lively
as Louise, the hausfrau who begins to sense that there might be more to life
than her drab, pompous husband has to offer, and as Versati, the
arch-womanizer, Moses simply oozes false charm from every pore at his first
entrance…his evocative body language drew a laugh from the audience on opening
night before his character spoke a word.
Jenny Leona
Edelstein directs with a light,
deft hand that maintains the play’s playfulness throughout (albeit with the
aforementioned dark undercurrent), right up to the curtain call when (similar
to the close of “Room Service”) the cast reappears and does a conga-line dance,
albeit all in their underwear.
Performed without an intermission,
“The Underpants,” which is being presented in association with Hartford Stage,
is frothy frivolity at its best, and a great way for Long Wharf
“The Underpants” runs through Nov.
10. For tickets or more information call 203-787-4282 or go to
www.longwharf.org.
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