from
Metroland...
The Escape Artist By Kathy Ceceri Run for Your
Wife By
Ray Cooney, directed by Philip C. Rice We
could probably all use a good escapist comedy
right now, which makes Curtain Call Theatre's
latest offering even more welcome this stressed-out
time of year. Run for Your Wife is a British-flavored
sex farce, plain and simple, the twist being
that the lucky chap enjoying extra helpings
of romantic attention is so ordinary that
he's actually named John Smith. With a script
full of the best sort of dry British wit and
a top-rate ensemble of actors, directed with
impeccable comedic skill by Philip C. Rice,
Run for Your Wife is a lesser-known gem just
waiting to be discovered.
Holding the whole thing together is Aaron
S. Holbritter as Smith, the hapless taxi driver
who more through inertia than stealth has
somehow ended up with one wife in Wimbledon
and another in Streatham. Smith keeps his
double life ticking along smoothly by means
of a pocket planner, until a knock on the
head throws everything out of whack. When
he fails to show up in his usual clockwork-like
manner at flat No. 1 at midnight or flat No.
2 at 7, his worried wives ring up their respective
police stations, and the chase begins.
Cooney doesn't make much of either the similarities
or the differences in the characters of Barbara
Smith (Heather Hewitt) and Mary Smith (Lisa
Henderson), other than to make them both nice,
ordinary people, whose screams of frustration
seem perfectly understandable, given how much
they are normally willing to put up with out
of faith in their reliable, loving mate. Instead,
the playwright saves the best bits of dialogue
for the "boys," chief among them
John's and Mary's upstairs neighbor Stanley
Gardner. Stanley is a layabout pest who's
temporarily unemployed, although he's thinking
of making it permanent-the hours are good.
As played by James Disalvatore, Stanley is
charming and wry and a good counterpart to
the amazingly unflappable Smith, whom he accuses
of flitting between his two women "like
an oversexed bumblebee." Stanley is let
in on the secret when Smith realizes he has
some fast covering up to do, and the pair
manage to come up with enough improbable stories
to make Lucy and Ethel proud.
Adding to the chaos are Detective Sgt. Troughton
(David Edward Campbell) of the Wimbledon CID,
who brings the battered Smith home from the
hospital and decides to look into some confusion
over his actual address, and Detective Sgt.
Porterhouse, his counterpart in Streatham,
who becomes so wrapped up in the mystery of
the two missing Smith reports that he ends
up pouring tea and offering marital advice
to the lot. Meanwhile, upstairs from John
and Barbara, frockmaker Bobby Franklyn is
fixing up his new flat and popping in and
out to repair the damage he's caused to the
Smith's apartment below. Director Rice, who
stepped in to play Bobby opening weekend (the
talented Jeremy Buechner will be taking over
for the rest of the run) got some of the biggest
laughs of the night, although the sheer volume
of pouf jokes struck me as a bit too much
for this day and age. My only other complaint
is with the set by Malachi Martin. Though
functionally designed-an intersection of the
two apartments, each half reflecting the other-the
decorating scheme was drab without being deliberately
so, making it seem less a choice of the characters
than of the designer.
In all
other ways, though, Run for Your Wife is better
than
a flu shot for relief from too much reality
this season.
