BWW Reviews: THE FOREIGNER at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre

Chaffin's Barn, the venerable Nashville theatrical venue where you get top-flight productions served up alongside some mighty tasty roast beef, is on a roll this year. Coming off the success of its excellent production of 'Til Beth Do Us Part, Chaffin's mines their estimable comedy vault to bring back Larry Shue's Southern-fried and Georgia-bred classic The Foreigner - and audiences will be flocking to the Barn for a thoroughly delightful experience.

Under the direction of Dietz Osborne and featuring a stellar cast of superb actors, this Foreigner (Chaffin's fourth mounting of the play) serves up some amazingly deft comic moments, along with a startlingly fresh perspective and what is, clearly, one of the best ensemble performances across-the-board that we've ever had the privilege of witnessing. These people are so damn good it'll make you want to slap your mama!

Set in a hunting lodge in rural Tillman, Georgia (which doesn't really exist - did I ever mention that I used to be a "geographic specialist" for AAA and my job was to locate lost motorists who had no clue where they were throughout Georgia?), Shue's The Foreigner is a smartly crafted and farcical comedy, focusing on characters who (for the most part, at least) are genuinely engaging and accessible, but who find themselves amid all manner of unexpecTed Mayhem. Shue's script is filled with crisp, truly funny, dialogue and his adroit manipulation of characters and plot points results in a show that continues to entertain and to provoke thought.

Shue's deceptively slight set-up for the play's action - a British military man deposits a cuckolded friend at a hunting lodge for three days to come to terms with his wife's unfaithfulness and tells the lodge's owner that his friend is "a foreigner," who speaks no English - provides the perfect cover for the far weightier issues he examines during the play's two-plus hours. By the time the audience realizes they're in for a darker journey (a white, "Christian" supremacist group plots to take over the lodge as its headquarters) than first expected, they are completely caught up in the comedy, charmed by most of the people they've come to know and totally invested in what fates might befall them.

While The Foreigner makes you laugh heartily at the onstage goings-on and Osborne's cast lifts the scriptbound situations into the comedic stratosphere, it will just as easily and just as imaginatively shift its course and force you (particularly if you're a Southerner, as most of the audiences at Chaffin's Barn are) to think. This production - and its talented creative ensemble both on- and off-stage - walks the razor's edge of that very fine line beautifully, underscoring the message delivered by Shue's work.

Osborne's seasoned directorial hand is felt throughout the show, perhaps no more so than in his sharply focused eye for casting the right actor for the right job. Throughout, you will marvel at the confident and totally committed performances of Osborne's actors.

Derek Whittaker, one of the most gifted and most lovable actors anywhere, delivers a tour-de-force performance as Charlie Baker, the "foreigner" of the play's title. Whittaker's natural charm is echoed in Charlie's rather guileless persona and the actor wears the role like a favorite sweater, imbuing Charlie with heartfelt humor and grace (wait, didn't I say this is a farce?) that belies his amazing sense of timing and his unrelenting way with a comic moment created by the playwright. While Whittaker provides the perfect foil for the other characters during Charlie's silence, he manages to deliver a performance that is nuanced and disarming. You are disabused of any notion that Whittaker might not have the audience completely and resolutely in his hand when he delivers a broadly drawn, yet again rather subtle, nonsensical monologue (or two or three) in the play's second act.

Whittaker is ideally paired with the cream of the comedy crop at Chaffin's Barn, which features the absolutely wonderful Tammie Whited as Betty Meeks, the lodge's owner who longs to see the mysteries of the rest of the world. Whited's skilled portrayal exemplifies her notable versatility and ensures the play's heart is found right where it should be.

As Catherine Sims, a fading - if still fetching - Southern belle who finds herself knocked up (as the result of "a miracle," according to her preacher boyfriend), Jenny Norris-Light plays her potentially one-note character with the perfect blend of status-driven arrogance and genuine naivete, ensuring that you actually feel for Catherine and her "predicament." David Compton, returning once again to the role of preacher David Lee, gives a measured, controlled performance that is at one moment completely likable and yet, somehow, eerily frightening.

Daniel Hackman, as the play's nominal "bad guy" Owen Musser, refuses to follow the easy route in bringing his character to life and, instead, gives a multi-colored reading that confounds you and, very truthfully, blankets you in a vague sense of unease that is palpable and disquieting to say the least. Charlie Winton plays Charlie's mate Froggy LeSuer (maybe the peas are named after him, I'm not sure) with an understated assurance that is essential is setting up the whole, convoluted plot.

But if there is a scene-stealer among this laudable ensemble, it is clearly Scott Costner, making his Chaffin's Barn debut, as Ellard, Catherine's slow-witted younger brother. Costner's performance is so sweetly engaging that you can't help but love Ellard - and his skill is impeccable as he skirts stereotype to give a fully fleshed-out character. The chemistry between Costner and Whittaker is impressive, making certain that audiences will rally to the pair when the play's going gets rough in Act Two.

The overall impact of the production is top-notch and any wobbly and/or wonky moments (a couple of lighting and sound cues seemed ill-timed) on opening night can be pardoned by the very words "opening night" and will, no doubt, be eradicated by the play's second performance. John Chaffin's serviceable design provides the perfect setting for the play, accented by Mary Jo Kilzer Weaver's terrific lighting design and Debbie Kraski's properties design. Billy Ditty's unfaltering skill allows him to once again outdo himself with the show's costume and wig design.

- The Foreigner. By Larry Shue. Directed by Dietz Osborne. Presented by Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Nashville. Through April 30. For details, visit the website at www.dinnertheatre.com; for reservations, call (615) 646-9977.

pictured: Scott Costner, Tammie Whited and Derek Whittaker

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