BWW Reviews: A GENTLEMAN & A SCOUNDREL at Chaffin's Barn

Much has been made of late about a reviewer for the Wall Street Journal - by the name of Joanne Kaufman - who recently wrote a column in which she fairly chortled about regularly sneaking out of shows she was being paid to review in order to go home early, rather than sit through sub-par productions of questionable quality.

Naturally, I was horrified and could be heard telling hapless friends about how unsuitable her behavior was and how unseemly it is for a theater critic with any appropriate bona fides to behave in such a manner. Certainly, if any critic worth his salt in the hinterlands (and Nashville can be considered the theatrical hinterlands despite its hiptitude and current reign as America's "It" city) can sit through some of the stuff dished up for us, then some high-falutin' WSJ critic can do her job!

Then, it happened to me last Saturday night: I went to a show and left at the start of the second intermission. In the manner of full disclosure, I have left a show early only once before - back in the late 20th century, I sneaked out of a particularly hideous and offensive production of Steel Magnolias in Oak Ridge - although I have chosen not to review a few shows because they were so bad I did not want to relive the experience or to make people I like to start crying.

But I have felt so guilty about leaving Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's latest version of Jack Sharkey's A Gentleman and A Scoundrel that I have been curled up in the corner of my bedroom, rocking back and forth gently while humming the love theme from St. Elmo's Fire and trying to find the courage to admit my churlish behavior. While lying prostrate on the floor, I tried to come up with clever quips and sassy bons mots in the inspired manner of what is arguably my most famous review (also for a Barn show entitled Sorry, Wrong Chimney: "Sorry. Wrong!"), but alas, encroaching age and a lack of liquor may have rendered that particular lightening in a bottle review impossible this time around.

Let me say this, I think Janie and John Chaffin are the best! They are the consummate hosts and they obviously know their clientele (everyone around me was loving the pedestrian pablum being fed to them from the stage in Sharkey's dated take on...well, whatever it was that he was trying to peddle in 1973, when he wrote A Gentleman and A Scoundrel). I admit that I feel tremendously rude and disloyal to them having left the show before its conclusion. However, I doubt it ever got any better and I figured the headlines that might accompany my staying through to the end ("Local Critic Stabs Self With Butter Knife Because He Failed To Keep His Fork") might be worse than this review.

A young product analyst named Fred Dickson (Steven Kraski, a charming leading man who displays an amazing ability to make even the dreariest of dialogue seem remotely plausible) is short on cash and is trying to convince his boss Jenny Corell (Corrie Miller, who seems lost onstage) that she should give him a raise and maybe a little kiss. She insists that Fred (sporting an estimable pornstache that would make Harry Reems jealous, to appear more "manly") is at the top of his paygrade and that the only way to get a raise is if he hires an assistant. Presumably, the added responsibility of supervising a co-worker will come with a raise in pay for Fred.

Somehow, Fred comes up with a real humdinger of an idea and he pulls on his fake 'stache, puts on a pair of cowboy boots and a sequined and fringed Western jacket that he apparently bought at Porter Waggoner's yard sale and he becomes "Rick Laredo," a plain talkin', Texas son of a gun who, in quick order, melts the panties right off of ol' Jenny (who has inexplicably come back to Fred's apartment to tell him something) who doesn't recognize that he's really Fred! Somehow, Rick gets the assistant's job at a higher rate of pay than his boss, and a company investigator (from AEIOU, Inc.) is soon on Fred's trail trying to determine where all the extra money in his bank account is coming from. Debbie Kraski (Steven's real-life mother) plays the unctuous Mrs. Pronk with women's prison guard-like precision.

And hilarity ensues.

Lydia Bushfield directed and designed the nifty circa 1970s costumes; she shares set design credit with John Chaffin. Together, they create a pretty swell setting.

A Gentleman and A Scoundrel. By Jack Sharkey. Directed by Lydia Bushfield. Presented by Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Nashville. Through February 8. For ticket information, call (615) 646-9977. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (including two 10-minute intermissions)

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