FIRST FOLIO MOVES THEIR BLOOMIN’ FARCE
INTO HIGH GEAR
Unnecessary Farce is that rarest of theatrical birds: a farce that is actually funny. Sure, it’s silly to the max, but it makes the audience laugh, the primary responsibility of a farce (and a goal rarely achieved). Paul Slade Smith, a popular Chicagoland actor a couple of decades ago, wrote this comedy in 2006, and it has since received critically praised productions throughout the country. Now the play has come home and First Folio Theatre, a company better known for its Shakespeare revivals, isn’t slumming with this Chicago premiere. First Folio artistic director Alison Vesely and her fine cast – which includes several notable Chicago actors – make a winning combination.
Smith’s script follows the conventions of the traditional farce. An improbable situation is established, leading to small misunderstandings that spiral into larger misunderstandings that ascend to a chaos level of confusion. There is no profundity in a farce, no social value, no depth of character, and no scintillating dialogue. The show exists to make audiences laugh, not think or shed a tear. Smith fulfills that mandate with gratifying flair. Some of his lines are actually witty, a merit seldom associated with farces.
The action of Unnecessary Farce takes place in adjoining bedrooms in a low rent motel in some unidentified small town. The town police force is setting up a sting operation to capture the mayor on videotape doing a corrupt deal. The policeman and policewoman handling the sting are both bumblers and matters quickly go off the rails. In short order we meet the mayor, his security guard, a woman named Karen Brown involved in the sting operation, and later in the show, the mayor’s wife and a Scottish assassin with a thick brogue that gets unintelligible as he gets angry.
Every self-respecting farce is loaded with sexual innuendo, and Smith lays it on with a trowel. A running gag has the mayor entering a room just in time to witness a brawl he misinterprets as a sexual encounter, either heterosexual or gay. Another running gag involves Karen Brown pursuing the flustered policeman who doesn’t know how to handle the erotic overtures of this attractive and highly sexed young woman.
Farces are also all about increasingly frantic movement, symbolized by a considerable number of doors in the set that facilitate the entry and exit of characters with split second time to avoid meetings that would be hugely embarrassing or dangerous to the arrived or departed. Angela Miller’s set has eight doors, leading in and out of hallways and closets and bathrooms (fine work is also done by Shelley Holland – lighting, Christopher Kriz – sound, and Elsa Hiltner – costumes).
By farce standards, Unnecessary Farce has a simple plot without lessening the escalating frenzy. The story injects plot twists in the second act that turn the plot into a whodunit with a surprise villain. The thread of comic sex and violence weaves its way through the entire evening, though, as usual with a farce, the sex (at least on stage) comes to nothing more than minimal disrobing and nobody gets hurt in the violence. The story ends happily, with the villains subdued and the policeman and Ms. Brown finally getting to bundle.
The play isn’t perfect. The first act runs too long, as does a scene in the second act in which four characters point guns at each other for an excessive amount of time. But timing throughout the evening is just right, the crucial element in any farce. The door slammings were all on schedule, and overlapping dialogue coming from the two bedrooms was spot-on in its precision. Best of all, Smith’s script is unusually clever and droll.
The play’s most inspired creation is Todd, the Scottish killer for hire played with tongue-twisting brilliance by Joe Foust. The sight and sound of Foust garbling his Scottish brogue as his anger level rises is a comic (and linguistic) hoot.
The talented and compatible cast consists of Kevin McKillip as the policeman, Erin Noel Grennan as his policewoman partner with all kinds of hang-ups, Molly Glynn as Karen Brown, Raymond Fox as the security agent, and Jeannie Affelder as the mayor’s wife. Special props go to Dale Benson as the mayor. Benson has appeared in more Chicagoland farces than there are stars in the heavens, and after decades of honorable service on area stages, he’s still got it.
Farce is not for everyone. Some viewers will have a low tolerance for all the nonsense on stage. Audiences need to check their requirements for realism and credibility at the door and get into the spirit of a play whose sole intent is to make the viewers laugh. Frankly, I attended Unnecessary Farce with low expectations. I’ve sat through too many wheezing, frenzied farces with their comic timing a fatal beat off, farces that tried to make up with noise and dithering what they lacked in genuine humor. Not so in the First Folio production. The show may not convert farce detractors, but patrons content to witness two hours of well-acted, well-directed, and well-written broad comedy should be delighted.
photos by D. Rice
Unnecessary Farce
First Folio Theatre
Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook
ends on March 4, 2012
for tickets, visit First Folio
for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago
