Unnecessary Farce
A Comedy by Paul Slade Smith, Directed by James Brennan, Scenic Design by Ray Klausen, Costume Design by Meganne George, Sound Design by James McCartney, Lighting Design by Christopher S. Chambers; Advance Stage Manager, Dan Zittel; Resident Stage Manager, Ginger M. James
CAST: Brad Bellamy, Jennifer Cody, Suzanna Hay, Dee Hoty, Michael McGrath, John Scherer, Jeremy Webb
Performances through September 3 at Cape Playhouse at Cape Cod Center for the Arts, Route 6A, Dennis, MA; Box Office 508-385-3911 or www.capeplayhouse.org
The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, MA, has been putting on shows and entertaining summer visitors and residents alike for eighty-five seasons. Numerous stars of Broadway, film, and television have trod the boards of the rustic former meetinghouse, including Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, Helen Hayes, and Julie Harris. Following in those famous footsteps, many present day professional performers return to this stage year after year, creating an informal repertory company capable of mounting quality productions. The cast of Unnecessary Farce is a prime example of this phenomenon and certainly one of the keys to its success.
The second play by playwright Paul Slade Smith, Unnecessary Farce will enable The Playhouse to close its doors for the season with echoes of laughter reverberating off the venerable rafters, thanks to the crack comic timing of the seven actors and actresses under the direction of James Brennan. The director is reunited with John Scherer (Eric Sheridan) and Jennifer Cody (Billie Dwyer), a couple of veteran farceurs who were traveling companions in the Cape's 2010 Boeing, Boeing, and Tony-nominated Michael McGrath (Agent Frank) who appeared as Groucho in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine in 2008. Three times Tony nominee Dee Hoty (Karen Brown), Brad Bellamy (Mayor Meekly), Jeremy Webb (Todd), and Suzanna Hay (Mary Meekly) complete the ensemble.
Set in two adjoining motel rooms, designed with pitch perfect décor and matching furnishings by Ray Klausen, Farce introduces its foils, the woefully inept police officers Sheridan and Dwyer, as they begin an undercover stakeout destined for failure. Their task is to videotape a meeting in the next room between the Mayor and the town accountant, Ms. Brown, with the goal of uncovering an embezzlement scheme. Complications arise when the affable, but dim, Mayor spots Billie in uniform in the lobby, and Eric and Karen are distracted from the assignment by their lustful attraction to each other. Agent Frank, the head of town hall security, swaggers in wearing dark, aviator glasses, and insists upon searching the room for "bugs." Meanwhile, whatever the goings-on, the camera is running and inadvertently offers some racy viewing during playback. Inevitably, the object of the sting avoids divulging any juicy secrets, but Meekly repeatedly stumbles upon the actual or supposed sexual shenanigans of the others.
