BWW Reviews: Laughter is Unavoidable in UNNECESSARY FARCE

Unnecessary Farce

A Comedy by Paul Slade Smith, Directed by James Brennan, Scenic Design by Ray Klausen, Costume Design by Meganne George, Sound Design by James McCartney, Lighting Design by Christopher S. Chambers; Advance Stage Manager, Dan Zittel; Resident Stage Manager, Ginger M. James

CAST: Brad Bellamy, Jennifer Cody, Suzanna Hay, Dee Hoty, Michael McGrath, John Scherer, Jeremy Webb

Performances through September 3 at Cape Playhouse at Cape Cod Center for the Arts, Route 6A, Dennis, MA; Box Office 508-385-3911 or www.capeplayhouse.org

The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, MA, has been putting on shows and entertaining summer visitors and residents alike for eighty-five seasons. Numerous stars of Broadway, film, and television have trod the boards of the rustic former meetinghouse, including Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, Helen Hayes, and Julie Harris. Following in those famous footsteps, many present day professional performers return to this stage year after year, creating an informal repertory company capable of mounting quality productions. The cast of Unnecessary Farce is a prime example of this phenomenon and certainly one of the keys to its success.

The second play by playwright Paul Slade Smith, Unnecessary Farce will enable The Playhouse to close its doors for the season with echoes of laughter reverberating off the venerable rafters, thanks to the crack comic timing of the seven actors and actresses under the direction of James Brennan. The director is reunited with John Scherer (Eric Sheridan) and Jennifer Cody (Billie Dwyer), a couple of veteran farceurs who were traveling companions in the Cape's 2010 Boeing, Boeing, and Tony-nominated Michael McGrath (Agent Frank) who appeared as Groucho in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine in 2008. Three times Tony nominee Dee Hoty (Karen Brown), Brad Bellamy (Mayor Meekly), Jeremy Webb (Todd), and Suzanna Hay (Mary Meekly) complete the ensemble.  

Set in two adjoining motel rooms, designed with pitch perfect décor and matching furnishings by Ray Klausen, Farce introduces its foils, the woefully inept police officers Sheridan and Dwyer, as they begin an undercover stakeout destined for failure. Their task is to videotape a meeting in the next room between the Mayor and the town accountant, Ms. Brown, with the goal of uncovering an embezzlement scheme. Complications arise when the affable, but dim, Mayor spots Billie in uniform in the lobby, and Eric and Karen are distracted from the assignment by their lustful attraction to each other. Agent Frank, the head of town hall security, swaggers in wearing dark, aviator glasses, and insists upon searching the room for "bugs." Meanwhile, whatever the goings-on, the camera is running and inadvertently offers some racy viewing during playback. Inevitably, the object of the sting avoids divulging any juicy secrets, but Meekly repeatedly stumbles upon the actual or supposed sexual shenanigans of the others.

Agent Frank is charged with detailing the storyline for the other players, as well as the audience, which could be deadly in the hands of a lesser actor, but McGrath plays his part to the hilt. While bearing a slight physical resemblance to Nathan Lane (and channeling a bit of his shtick), McGrath is convincing when Frank's swagger gives way to a severe case of nerves as he explains what will happen to anyone trying to find the missing money. They will come up against the local mafia known as The Scottish Clan, run by Big Mac, and be marked for elimination by Todd, the Highland Hit Man, whose trademark is to don a kilt and play the bagpipes before the kill.

Showing his grasp of the farce genre with his absurd invention of the Clan and the Scotsman as its poster boy, Smith packs his comedy to the gills with improbable and unlikely happenings, each funnier than the last. The really good gags are repeated just enough to continue eliciting laughs every time. Billie fears getting locked in the closet more than she worries about Todd killing her. When he gets really angry with her for not answering his questions, his Scottish brogue gets thicker and thicker, until no one can understand a word he says (including the audience). Eric, Karen, and Frank are often found in a state of dishabille, resulting in no shortage of compromising situations in one bedroom or the other. And did I mention the video camera is recording it all?

In the second act, the Mayor's sweet and ditzy wife shows up, appearing to have little purpose beyond adding to the silliness quotient. She wrings her hands and apologizes, but there's more to her than meets the eye and Hay does a good job of hiding her secret until the appropriate moment for the revelation. Bellamy disguises the true nature of his character, as well, until it is safe for the Mayor to tip his hand. In the end, no one is who they seemed to be at the start of the play, either because they were dissembling or because their character has achieved some growth in the course of the night's events.

There are moments when Unnecessary Farce is a little too ridiculous, but it moves along so quickly that those moments are soon forgotten in a rash of laughter or a gasp of surprise at one of the twists in the story. The characters are well drawn, each with their own quirks that create an interesting mix of personalities, and the entire cast succeeds in bringing them vividly to lifE. Brennan's direction and the ensemble's impeccable timing deserve top billing and provide more than enough enjoyment to overcome any flaws in the play.

Photo credit: Kathleen A. Fahle (John Scherer, Jeremy Webb, Michael McGrath, Suzanne Hay, Dee Hoty, Brad Bellamy)

 

 

 

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