Madness and chaos rule the stage in “Unnecessary Farce”

By LARRY ADAMS
A Seat on the Aisle

“Just people running in and out of rooms, taking off their clothes. That hardly passes for a plot.”

That single line (in a decidedly meta wink by the playwright), delivered by a character watching what he thinks is just poorly made soft porn, telegraphs exactly what the audience can expect over the next roughly two hours on stage: madcap physicality, preposterous situations, light sexual humor – and a whole lot of laughs.

That’s the nature of farce, and Unnecessary Farce, Paul Slade Smith’s award-winning, inaugural, playwrighting effort, dutifully ticks all the boxes in its titular genre.

Mistaken identities – check. Slamming doors – check. People hiding in closets – check. Slapstick shenanigans – a check. Ridiculously implausible misunderstandings, plot twists and general chaos – check, check and check.

Farce is admittedly a relentlessly formulaic and predictable … well, um, “art form,” if you will, and can therefore come off as an awkwardly cheesy and clunky mess in the wrong hands. However, when done well – as is the case with Center Stage Community Theatre’s current production – it results instead in a delightful evening’s entertainment that leaves the audience laughing and reliving their favorite lines and pratfalls all the way home.

The play’s plot, for what it’s worth, centers on a police sting operation in a cheap motel: two incompetent cops trying to earn their stripes by collaring a supposedly corrupt mayor. Naturally, things quickly go awry when a budding romance, a hyperactive security agent, and (what else?) the Scottish Mafia enter the picture. None of it makes much sense, of course, or really matters all that much; the whole house of silly contrivances is built merely to host the mayhem wrought by a bunch of zany characters thrown into close – EXTREMELY close – proximity.

Matt Anderson as Agent Frank with Lisa Anderson as Karen Brown. (Photo by Rob Slaven / IndyGhostLight.com)

Hunter Nuzzi leads the cast in a surprisingly polished theatrical debut as Officer Eric Sheridan. His comedic timing and natural charisma bode well for his future on the stage. Lisa K. Anderson turns in a fine performance as the flirty, goofily seductive, and overall fish-out-of-water bookkeeper and love interest, Karen Brown. Ms. Anderson’s real-life husband, Matt Anderson, chews up the scenery as the aforementioned agent, while Ron Pittman lands some of the show’s biggest laughs as the befuddled and awkwardly inclusive Mayor Meekly.

Julie Wallyn gives us an appropriately mysterious Mary Meekly, demure wife of the mayor and maybe a little bit more, and Kevin Shadle scores laughs as a Scottish hitman with the ominous name of “Todd.” Be assured, no bagpipes were harmed (or played, thankfully) in the course of this production.

Rounding out the cast is Lauren Lotzow, shining particularly brightly in the supporting role of Billie Dwyer, Officer Sheridan’s earnest but inept junior partner. Lotzow’s comedic delivery and her role awareness are a joy to watch and appreciate, and her execution of some of the more difficult, and potentially actionable, physical stunts kept me both laughing and wondering if a break for medical intervention might be in our future.

Director Nicole Amsler deserves special recognition for her handling of a difficult piece to stage. Farce may be formulaic, but it’s not easy to pull off successfully. Timing, pace, and “choreography” are essential and must be meticulously managed; give the audience too much time to think and the whole thing collapses. Unnecessary Farce is one of the fastest moving shows I’ve ever seen, and Amsler’s coordination of her actors and the action is simply masterful.

My only nit to pick with the entire production concerns a certain amount of stylistic mismatch in the acting. While no one in Smith’s goofy universe of bungling cops and kilted killers could ever be considered a straight man (or woman) in the lineage of a Dean Martin or Bud Abbott, some of the actors appear to ground their characters – tenuously at best, I’ll admit – in a degree of realism, while others crank the absurdity in both line delivery and physicality up to 11. Maybe even 12. Neither is inherently wrong (although the latter risks getting a bit cringy and exhausting), but the contrast between the two approaches results in a rather uneven tone to the show that can be distracting at times. A move toward a more congruent middle ground could be helpful here.

Finally, a word about the set is in order. Reading this script a year or more ago, I could not begin to imagine how two separate hotel rooms and eight doors could be squeezed onto CSCT’s relatively small stage, but somehow they managed it, and made it look completely believable. My hat is off to Set Designers Christy Summerset and Nicole Amsler, as well as to any others who had a hand in construction. It is truly nothing short of a theatrical miracle.

“Two cops. Three crooks. Eight doors. Go,” commands the tagline of Unnecessary Farce on its webpage; and it really, truly, doesn’t get much deeper or more complicated than that. Look for a message in this show and you’ll be disappointed. FIND one, and you should be committed. But are there laughs? Well, does a Scottish hitman wear a kilt before he kills? Find out through July 26 at Center Stage Community Theatre in Lebanon.

Read more great play reviews from A Seat on the Aisle at asota.wordpress.com.