There are just some things that make everything better, that introduce such an element of delight that it can turn anything around. Like the way all food improves with the addition of bacon, or how the presence of Christopher Walken elevates the lousiest movies into the realm of art, or how the worst news can seem OK when delivered in the voice of Fred Schneider. It’s the little things, but they work like magic. Case in point: There is no entertainment that is not vastly improved by the inclusion of a vicar in his underwear.
That’s the conclusion I reached while watching the Town & Gown Players’ production of See How They Run. Long before it was a Beatles lyric, the phrase came from the nursery rhyme “Three Blind Mice,†describing the hilarity that ensues when you chase visually impaired rodents around with sharp utensils. How the mice know what’s coming after them I have no idea, but the result is pure, scampering chaos, just like this play. Written by Philip King in 1943 and originally produced in the thick of World War II, the play is a froth of mistaken identities, misunderstandings and lots and lots of running around madly.
The tiny English village of Merton-cum-Middlewick is the home of the Reverend Lionel Toop (Patrick Hooper), a young, buttoned-down vicar who has somehow scored a seriously hot wife, former American actress Penelope (Asia Meana). Penelope loves her husband but chafes at the horse-drawn pace of the village and insists on such scandalous behavior as wearing trousers and flirting with the soldiers at the nearby American military base. Such extravagance rankles some in the town, particularly local gossip-monger and big-fish-in-small-pond Mrs. Skillon (Kelly McGlaun-Fields), who looks for every opportunity to lay some heavy tut-tutting on Penelope.
It appears that Mrs. Skillon gets her fondest wish when she spies Penelope in a playful clinch with Clive (Briton Dean), now a corporal stationed at the base but once a fellow actor and an old friend. But before the old busybody can make mischief, she’s accidentally clipped in the jaw and then plied with a bottle of cooking sherry to keep her down while Penelope and Clive, dressed in one of Lionel’s suits and collar to avoid scandal, go off to see a show.
Meanwhile, Lionel is having problems of his own. While he frantically prepares for a visit from a traveling vicar (Todd Curless) and a bishop (Murray Weed) who happens to be Penelope’s uncle, he’s attacked by a Russian spy (Daniel Cutts) who’s just escaped from the base and needs his clothes. Suddenly Penelope and her maid Ida (Elizabeth Day) find themselves having to avert a catastrophe as the vicarage is filled with real and false vicars, with everyone wearing Lionel’s clothes except Lionel, chasing each other around the house and through the garden. And to make matters worse, Mrs. Skillon is sobering up.
Don’t look for deep meaning in this play, because there is none to be found. See How They Run is pure slapstick farce, and thank goodness. It operates in that middle ground between Restoration bed-trick comedy and “Three’s Company,” a place where people run around cartoonishly, tossing zingers back and forth like Frisbees at a Phish show. While not quite as clever as, say, a Marx Brothers romp, there’s enough old-fashioned pie-in-the-face here to tickle even the most jaded theater-goer.
The ensemble cast is very good, especially a wisecracking Dean, a befuddled Curless and a quick-witted Meana. Tyler Dain’s swaggering constable, appearing in the second act, could be reined in a bit; he’s over-the-top, as he should be, but his performance feels a bit too cartoon-y and at odds with the rest of the cast. Still, as a whole, the cast performs with the kind of split-second timing that a good farce requires. In fact, the one-liners come so quickly that many are bound to get lost while the audience is laughing.
There is one set, the Toops’ Edwardian living room, but with many doors and points of entry. It looks both beautiful and like a lot of fun to play in. The costumes are simple but pleasing.
Director Rebekah Williams has made an interesting choice in See How They Run. It’s utter candy floss, but the lack of demands on the audience works for it, leaving us free to sit back and enjoy the cavorting for its own sake and its many elements of delight.
[See How They Run continues its run at the Athens Community Theatre Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 11–13, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 14, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15, $8 for students on Thursday. Go to www.townandgownplayers.org for more information and visit www.showclix.com to purchase tickets.]
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