Turning the conventions of British farce on their ear, two of England's best-known modern playwrights crafted one-act plays during the 1960s that have been paired in the Footlighters' latest production, which opened Thursday evening.
First up is Tom Stoppard's "The Real Inspector Hound." Ever since I saw "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" on Broadway long ago, I have admired Stoppard's cleverness and wit. In that play, he presented the story of Hamlet as told through the eyes of two of that play's minor characters. It was a real eye-opener.
In "Inspector Hound," Stoppard breaks the theater convention that separates audience from actors when two pompous theater critics, pontificating to each other from their front-row seats, end up on stage and become part of the play they are critiquing.
One critic is an old philanderer who has rendezvoused just the night before with one of the play's actresses, while the other is a second-string reviewer who fantasizes about killing off his senior so that he will become lead critic.
If either of these self-important critics ever thought he could do a better job than the actors he was reviewing, he finally gets his chance, while, in a reversal of roles, two of the play's actors take their seats in front of the stage to become the critics.
The one-act offers a wonderful spoof not only of critics but of the tried-and-true British melodrama or who-dunnit, with all its shtick and stock characters. There's the ominous music, the mysterious man suspected of murder, the housekeeper with the baleful eye, and so on.
The standard plot line becomes more and more complex, especially after the critics join the cast, and the climax comes as both a surprise and a mind-bender that left much of Thursday's night's audience, including this reviewer, puzzling their way into the lobby for intermission.
In support of my profession, I must praise the performances of Marc St. Onge and Chuck Wimberley as the two theatrical commentators. They play their roles to the hilt, milking them for all they're worth.
Rhesa Richards is a standout as the lugubrious housekeeper dressed in black, announcing visitors and peeping into windows to spy on her mistress and house guests. She seems to have stepped right out of "Rebecca" or another English mystery of that genre.
Vicki Janis offers an effective Lady Cynthia Muldoon, in whose country residence the action is set, while Angi Higgason is suitably irritating as the ditzy Felicity Cunningham. Dan Baldwin presents a sleazy and suspicious Simon Gascoyne, who arrives unannounced, dressed like the murderous madman that announcer Mel Chadwick warns about during several police reports heard on the radio. "Fletch" Fletcher is a terrifying Major Magnus Muldoon, a bear of a man confined to a wheelchair, while Mark Cantrell makes a believable Inspector Hound, fashioned in the mold of Sherlock Holmes.
Kudos also to Richard Endsley, who plays a superior (if uncredited) corpse throughout the entire one-act, and to Loren Weisbrod for his pre-play saxophone stylings. In addition, a rather offbeat type of musical accompaniment announces each appearance of Inspector Hound: It is Mrs. Drudge, the housekeeper, howling like a wolf.
The second one-act, "Black Comedy" by Peter Shaffer, twists the theater conventions of light and dark. It takes its clever conceit from a Peking opera sketch in which two men supposedly fighting a duel in the dark are brilliantly illuminated.
Shaffer's one-act opens with a conversation between a young British painter and his debutante fiance that takes place with the stage in darkness. Suddenly, when a fuse blows and the stage lights come up, we realize that now the set is supposedly in darkness for the players. Whenever one of the characters lights a match or "torch" (flashlight) during the action, the stage lights dim in a reversal of light and dark.
The rather inane plot line deals with painter Brindsley Miller's attempts to win the approval of his fiance Carol's straight-laced military father for their marriage while selling some of his sculpture to a rich German art collector. To impress his prospective father-in-law, he has "borrowed" from his traveling neighbor a whole apartment-load of furnishings and antiques.
The power outage casts a pall over his project as does the unexpected arrival home of the neighbor. Miller must try to return all the furniture under cover of darkness, revealing in the process the hidden intentions, desires and foibles of various of the play's characters.
While the conceit is clever at first, it grows old after a few minutes, and watching actors fumbling about in the light (dark) for more than an hour becomes fairly tedious. So does the high-pitched voice of the flighty and empty-headed debutante Carol, played by Angi Higgason, who seems to import her role of Felicity in the first play into this one-act. She speaks
at one decibel level and with one pitch of voice throughout the play.
Standout performances by several cast members provide the play's better moments. Wendy Johnson is funny as a spinster neighbor who discovers the joys of imbibing, while "Fletch" Fletcher is dynamic as the swishy antique dealer who is Miller's neighbor. Cindy Capen makes a convincing and conniving former girlfriend of Miller, well-played by Dan Baldwin. Richard Endsley returns from his first-act death to play the debutante's father, while Mark Cantrell and Marc St. Onge offer fine supporting performances as German-accented characters.
Director Teresa Dolan, along with Vicki Janis and Tom Hurst, designed the creative and attractive sets, which transform the stage from an English drawing room in Act I to a colorful art studio in Act II.
Costumes by Beverly Mitchell, Sheron Bealer and Pat Workman are colorful and stylish as well.
The two one-act plays continue at 8 p.m. Jan. 17-19, 25 and 26, with 2 p.m. matinees Jan. 13, 20, 26 and 27. Tickets are $10 and can be reserved by calling 793-2909. For the Saturday, Jan. 26, matinee, all tickets are two-for-one when purchased the day of the show (box office opens at noon that day). For information, check www.redlandsfootlighters.org.