April 16, 2002

CAUGHT IN THE NET

More old friends in my community theater tonight. In 1985, our "summer of a thousand plays," we attended Ray Cooney's "Run for Your Wife," a zany, hilarious comedy that turned me on to British farce. "Caught in the Net" is a sequel to that play, and to my surprise, the parts of Mary and Barbara Smith are again being played by Carol Hawkins and Helen Gill, who originated the roles in "Run for Your Wife" 15 years ago.

"Run for Your Wife" (part 1) begins with two women talking on the telephone (but not to each other), speaking simultaneously about a man who turns out to be married to both of them. Ingeniously, the set is a single living room that serves as both houses--often at the same time, with both wives onstage but oblivious to one another, a visual manifestation of the parallel lives that are about to collide. The rest of the play, of course, centers around the husband's increasingly complex deceptions and maneuvers as he vainly attempts to keep them from finding out about each other. The fun, of course, is in knowing that it will inevitably unravel, and then watching as it does. The British did not invent farce (in fact, the word is French for "stuffing" and originally referred to the comic subplots that were "stuffed" into serious plays) but I believe they perfected it. Farce is often looked down upon by serious theater goers as the low-brow end of theater: lightweight, two-dimensional, unbelievable. But in my opinion, farce is one of the most difficult genres to pull off. It either succeeds wonderfully, or it fails miserably. There really isn't a middle ground.

First, farce has to be well-crafated, with just the right combination of
mistaken identity, double entendre, and layered subplots, and it has to be perfectly paced, beginning slowly and developing into a frenetic pace that rolls over the audience and sets them howling in spite of themselves. Second, farce requires tremendous comic acting ability. In a play by Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde, the words themselves can often carry a show, even with mediocre acting (which is one reason these plays are selected so often by high school drama teachers). But with farce, the plot is so thin and the characters so everyday that the actors must carry the show. and when they do, it can be sublime.

"Caught in the Net" picks up the story of the Smith families 15 years later, when the son of one wife meets the daughter of the other wife while surfing the internet. After several online conversations, the daughter invites the son to her house for tea, and that's where the fun begins. The play develops with papa John's increasingly frantic and increasingly outlandish maneuvers to keep his two children from dating (without actually telling them the truth). Throw in a dotty old man who thinks he's at a beachside resort and--well, it isn't high theater, but it's great fun.

Carol Hawkins and Helen Gill, it turns out, have spent most of their careers performing in Ray Cooney comedies (he has written at least ten), touring England, Australia, New Zealand, and even cruise ships. They both have impeccable timing, and add much to the hilarity.

Eric Sykes, who plays the dotty old man, is well known to British audiences for his long-running tv series, "Sykes and A," and received enthusiastic applause when he entered the stage, I got the impression he is something of a Milton Berle or Bob Hope. I recognized him from last summer's spooky movie, "The Others," in which he played a more subdued role. But Sykes is a good example of how difficult it is to play farce well. He was too self-aware, almost as though he were saying "Look at me! Laugh at me! I'm the veteran up here!" As a result, although he had funny lines and his timing was pretty good, his curmudgeonly pratfalls fell short (pun intended). What should have been hysterically funny was merely distracting. Meanwhile, Robert Duncan as John Smith and Russ Abbot as his best friend and cohort Stanley Gardner were superb, particularly in their physical humor.

And that brings us back to the nature of farce itself: low-brow vaudeville or complex comedy? When it's well acted, it's terrific. This performance came close.

-- Jo Ann Skousen

email: jaskousen@mskousen.com

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