'There Goes the Bride' at Chaffin's Barn

When you go to a show at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, there are certain things you can always expect: a warm welcome, a bountiful and tasty buffet, attentive audiences and some of the best actors you're likely to find in Nashville. With the latest Barn offering, There Goes the Bride, you can also expect to find uninspired hilarity and frenetic staging, both of which disappoint and do nothing to elevate the term "dinner theatre" beyond its stereotype.

Written by Ray Cooney and John Chapman, There Goes the Bride encompasses everything you could possibly imagine when derisively considering what "dinner theatre" means. And coming from Chaffin's Barn, that's surprising. The Barn consistently, over its 40 year history, has produced some of the best theatre to be found in Nashville (and, fairly enough, their share of clunkers as well), and in many ways has risen above the derisive stereotypes. But this show doesn't do that; instead, it sinks in its own pool of mediocrity.

Set in 2009 London (which is no different from London in 1952, 1934 or 1927, apparently), the action takes place on the wedding day of young Judy Westerby and her unseen, inconsequential fiance Nicholas Babcock, an Australian expatriate. Judy lives with her parents, Ursula, an efficiently competent homemaker, and Timothy, a workaholic advertising executive. Ursula's caught up in wedding preparations and Timothy is striving to break himself away from his work on a time-sensitive ad campaign (although you have to ask yourself, why would an ad campaign for bras be so important that the client refuses to stop calling on Judy's wedding day?).

When a typically farcical, although comically unconvincing, accident sends Timothy into a fantasy world inhabited by the face of his bra campaign--a 1920s flapper named Polly Perkins--that threatens to upend the best-laid plans for the wedding of his wife, daughter and mother-in-law's dreams. There is hope for hijinks and fun aplenty in the premise as Timothy and the imaginary Polly cavort about the place while the others (including Tim's in-laws and his womanizing business partner, and the late-arriving father-of-the-groom) try to figure out what the hell is happening.

But it just doesn't work, which is surprising since Cooney has turned out some inspired farces in his long career. This play doesn't even rise to the level of bad sitcom material. In fact, it doesn't rise at all, it just lies there on the stage floor while we writhe in agony watching it die. So if the premise shows promise what can be done? (Let's face it, Cooney isn't going to re-write the script just because a critic in Nashville, Tennessee, hates his play.)

Frankly, director Kimberly Nygren could have made this play better by staging it as a period piece--maybe 1967 would be a good year in which to set the action (after all, '60-era farce can be fun, what with the bold colors and bad fashions of that decade). The script contains very few contemporary references, save for a supposedly "frank" discussion of sex before marriage, which would be better suited to an earlier era anyway. The language these characters use sounds so dated and stale that it can only be saved by treatment as a period piece.

The pacing in farce is essential to its success; in There Goes the Bride, the pace is less frenetic than it could be and more manic than it should be. There are missed opportunities in the very slapstickiness of the plot and in its onstage interpretation. Nygren is a much better director than this production suggests and her actors are better than their roles.

Nygren's cast slogs through the interminable dialogue with admirable gusto. Jennifer Noel is good as Ursula, the mother-of-the bride (looking more like an MILF in her MOTB blue dress; let's just say she wears it very well) and her accent is very consistent. Daron Bruce is pretty believable as Timothy and has a winning onstage persona that works well for his character. Noel and Bruce's interactions are believable, despite the weaknesses inherent in the script. But I have this advice for Noel's Ursula: If your husband harbors a strange fascination for the Roaring '20s and movie musicals, chances are you have more to worry about than if your husband's "Genghis Kahn't".

Among the supporting players, Charlie Winton is convincing as Tim's lazy business partner, although the script's allusions to his womanizing fall flat. John Silvestro is actually quite good as Ursula's father, a doddering dolt of a doctor, and Martha Manning is fine as his dragon-lady wife. Phil Perry plays the visiting Australian father-of-the-groom with an accent that switches from a good Down-Under variety to Tennessee native in the wink of an eye. Evelyn Brush is entertaining as the flapper and looks great in her platinum blonde wig and bee-stung red lips. Emma Jordan plays daughter Polly-and that's all I'm going to say.

Billy Ditty's costumes are typically well-executed and are among the evening's few successes; he has an unerring eye for detail and it's evident throughout the show.

--There Goes the Bride. By Ray Cooney and John Chapman. Directed by Kimberly Nygren. Produced by Janie and John Chaffin. At Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, 8204 Highway 100, Nashville, Tennessee. Through August 29. For details, visit the theatre's website at www.dinnertheatre.com

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