‘Wife’ Is Comedic, But Not In Any Of The Lessons It Extends

By Julie Stern

Director Suzanne Kinnear was looking anxious in the lobby of Newtown’s Little Theater last Friday night, right before the opening of Ray Cooney’s Run For Your Wife. There was no need for the butterflies.

An unwritten rule of theater says that if a set has five doors the play must be a farce. Always a competent director, Ms Kinnear was at her best here, keeping up the breathless pace and coaxing sharp performances from every member of her cast in this constant whirl of ringing phones and clamoring doorbells.

Using a situation reminiscent of the Alec Guinness  film The Captain’s Paradise, the playwright Cooney has made his hero a bigamous taxi driver who keeps two wives, in identical apartments in the separate London suburbs of Wimbledon and Streatham. By adhering to a rigid schedule and pretending to work back-to-back shifts, John Smith manages to keep the two Mrs Smiths — Mary and Barbara— blissfully unaware of each other.

The plot is set in motion when Smith, in an impulsive act of chivalry, leaps from his cab to interrupt a mugging and is inadvertently hit on the head and knocked unconscious.  His overnight stay in the hospital causes him to miss his scheduled arrival at each of his homes, and prompts both his worried wives to call their local police.

Before he can assure each spouse that he is indeed all right, two doggedly plodding police sergeants have been unleashed to pursue inquiries. As the story of the courageous cab driver makes front page news, complete with picture, in the local tabloid, John’s carefully constructed world begins to totter precariously. In desperation he enlists the help of his buddy Stanley,  an unemployed bachelor who lives upstairs from the Wimbledon flat, to help him keep his secret via a progression of increasingly far-fetched lies.

All of the performers in this latest Town Players production do an excellent job. Gary Nastu is both strong and low-key in the lead role as the hapless John. By contrast, Timothy Zeno is excitable and droll as his best friend, who. while not the brightest lamp on the street, is certainly a loyal pal.

Robin Hawkins and Deb Linley do well as the devoted wives, particularly Ms Hawkins, who has a real comic presence. Santi Britt and Doug Miller give clear definition to the roles of the two policemen, Mr Britt as the sterner and more intelligent Sergeant Troughton of Wimbledon, who listens to Stanley’s garbled explanation and observes dryly, “Do you know the meaning of the word ‘accessory,’?” and Mr Miller as the more gullible Sergeant Porterhouse, who wants to heal all domestic disputes with a cup of tea and marital counseling.

Daryl Howell is outrageously campy in the part of Bobby Franklin, a flirtatious dressmaker who lives above the Streatham apartment with his partner, Cyril. It is here that I began to have problems with this play — not because of the acting or directing, but because of the play itself.

Mr Cooney solves the problem of the plot by having John and Stanley pretend to be gay lovers, as an explanation to the police for John’s keeping his Streatham existence a secret from Mary. Keeping his wife Barbara hidden behind the various locked doors (when she does emerge he claims she is a transvestite), he frantically pantomimes romantic embraces with Stanley. Stanley doesn’t like it, but he goes along reluctantly. The police are appalled, but accept the situation with scorn and contempt.

I got the feeling that it is this idea, along with its ample opportunities to draw laughs at the antics of men pretending to be “poufs,” which essentially drives the play, rather than character or plot. This seemed cheap, and to me, offensive.

In our (perhaps happily) politically correct times we no longer see plays which get their laughs from caricaturing “Stepandfetchit” blacks, or conniving, heavily accented Jews.  There are plenty of good plays in which being black, or Jewish or gay is central to the theme, including some very funny comedies.  They manage to do so without drawing on the audiences’ prejudices to elicit laughs.

Run for your Wife is funny. I know I certainly laughed, due especially to Suzanne Kinnear’s direction and the performances of the actors. But it left a bad taste. See for yourself, but don’t bring your children. They will not benefit from such lessons.

 (Performances continue at The Little Theatre, on Orchard Hill Road in Newtown, Friday and Saturday evenings through November 18. Curtain is 8 pm. Tickets are $10, and can be reserved at 270-9144. There is one matinee planned for Sunday, November 12, at 2 pm.)