The Actor's Nightmare + The Real Inspector Hound: SO Meta

The first thing I noticed upon entering the theater at T. Schreiber Studio was the overtly opulent set- George Allison has built an entire proscenium stage in the space, complete with gold-fringed red curtain, footlights, and boxes on the sides of the stage.  It's not unlike The Muppet Show, in the best way.  It is the perfect frame for plays like Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare and Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, that play with the conventions of theatre. 

Durang's play is a classic- written initially to be paired with his Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, it is quite capable of standing on its own.  In it, an accountant named George Spelvin (Michael Black) wanders onto a stage where he is told by Meg, the stage manager (Therese Tucker), that another actor was in a car accident, and George will have to go on for him.  Unfortunately, George can't remember what play they're doing, or even if he's an actor at all.  He runs into the other performers, Sarah Siddons (Nan Wray), Dame Ellen Terry (Sara Goff), and Henry Irving (Oliver Burns), who all tell him they're doing different shows, till finally he's thust out onstage wearing a doublet to do Private Lives.

It's a wonderful production, and the actors are all very funny.  Michael Black, especially, has an appealing Dilberty charm as George.  You root for him to succeed as this crazy world keeps exploding around him.  Nan Wray is delightful as Sarah Siddons, as an actress she reminded me of Barbara Bryne.  Oliver Burns is funny as the brusque Henry Irving.  Therese Tucker makes a fine Meg, the Stage Manager.  Sara Goff was very nice as Dame Ellen Terry, though I didn't care for her cockney accent in the final sequences of the play.  Shawn Wilson doesn't do much more than show off a well-muscled chest as Mr. "X", but it's a very nice chest.

Stoppard's play is somewhat less known, though no less funny.  Although it's similarly meta-theatrical to Nightmare, it's a different style of comedy.  In it, two critics, Moon (Julian Elfer) and Birdboot (Rick Forstman) have come to review a play.  They sit in their box off to the side, and are more concerned with their own personal dramas than what's about to unfold on stage.  Moon is the second string critic, called in when the real critic can't make it, and Birdboot has been carrying on affairs with aspiring young actresses (though he hilariously denies it emphatically). Meanwhile, the play unfolds on stage- a murder mystery.  Mrs. Drudge, the housekeeper (the wonderful Nan Wray again) welcomes Simon (Shane Colt Jerome) to the isolated country house of Cynthia (Maggie Dashiell).  Unbeknownst to him, Felicity (Jenny Strassburg), with whom he had an affair, is also in attendance.  Then there's the wheelchair-bound Magnus (Ben Prayz).  Throughout all this, a dead body (Michael Horan) lies on the floor, unnoticed, till Inspector Hound (Michael W. Murray) enters.  The plot is full of silly conventions - turning on the radio will immediately get you the news report you're hoping for, the housekeeper announces the exact location as she picks up the phone, and everyone threatens (as the housekeeper overhears) to kill everyone else. 

To say more would ruin the delightful surprises of the play.  This too is an excellent realization of a very complicated script.  All the actors do a great job, especially Julian Elfer, Nan Wray, Maggie Dashiell, and Ben Prayz.

Though pairing two similar works is a strange evening, the two pieces are so well done, it's hard to complain.  And Durang and Stoppard on a double bill is nothing to sneeze at, either.

The Actors Nightmare & The Real Inspector Hound

Gloria Maddox Theater at T. Schreiber Studio

151 West 26th Street, 7th Floor between 6th and 7th Avenues

Now through June 15th

Thursday - Saturday 8pm, Sunday at 3pm

Tickets $20 through TheaterMania.com

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