Boeing Boeing Lands at Candlelight

By Carol Van Zoeren

A classic farce, Boeing Boeing premiered in Paris in 1960, with the English adaptation first staged in London in 1962. It has the distinction of being the most produced French play, although I had never read nor seen it. And what fun it is not to know what’s coming next!

The plot centers on Bernard (Ian Agnew), an American living in Paris and masterfully juggling relationships with three flight attendants by meticulously adhering to the flight schedules of the three airlines for whom the women work. Masterfully, that is, until faster planes upend the schedule. His old friend Robert (Eric Rupp) has arrived from Wisconsin and, along with Bernard’s dour housekeeper Bertha (Victoria Healy), bear the brunt of trying to keep a lid on the hilarity which ensues.

Bernard starts out cocky and becomes increasingly unhinged, and Agnew navigates this trajectory quite well. In less skilled hands, the character might reach the peak of unhingedness too early and have nowhere to go, but Agnew metes it out with admirable restraint. Robert’s trajectory is almost a mirror image, starting out unsure and gaining confidence, and with a constant cycle of craziness/relief/repeat. Rupp succeeds and does some of the best wordless acting I’ve seen with his expressive face. Healy, a Candlelight favorite, draws laughs from her first entrance. She has some of the biggest laugh lines of the show with perfect deadpan delivery.

Each of the flight attendants is clearly delineated through costumes, accents and mannerisms, and all three are delightfully over the top in stereotypical characterizations. The American, Gloria (Marybeth Williamson), is a free spirit with some randy behavior that must have been rather shocking in the 60s. The Italian, Gabriella (Heather Ferrell), is hot tempered and moody, and I especially liked Ferrell’s oh-so-Italian mannerisms. And the German, Gretchen (Sophie Jones), flips between coquettish to domineering and back in nanoseconds.

But beyond individual performances, what really makes farce work is how well the ensemble works together. And this is particularly impressive in this production. The pacing, the split second timing between who’s going into and coming out of which door (and there are seven of them in this one). And especially, this ensemble risks life and limb for the many highlights of physical comedy. Kudos to director Bob Kelly, to have his cast this polished on opening night!

The set has an appropriately muted palette of grey, black and white. This allows colorful elements of set dressing to really stand out and add to the fun. Most especially, a very important portrait — I won’t say more, you’ll know what I mean when you see it.

In sum, I thoroughly enjoyed Boeing Boeing. If you want a great night out with a lot of laughs, I highly recommend it!

See www.candlelighttheatredelaware.com.

Candlelight's "Drowsy Chaperone" Will Leave You Anything But

By Carol Van Zoeren
Carol is a 40+ year veteran of community theater and retired from DuPont.

Remarkably, as a musical theater geek, I was unfamiliar with The Drowsy Chaperone. Sure, I’d heard of it and was aware that the protagonist was “Man In Chair." But I didn’t know the songs, the plot or anything.

Well I’m a good student, so I Googled a synopsis of the plot the day before. I figured, as a reviewer, my responsibility was to review the production on stage, not the show itself. If I were trying to figure out the plot, I might be distracted from the production I was tasked to review. 

Connor McAndrews as "Man in Chair" in The Drowsy Chaperone.
Photo by Tisa Della-Volpe.

As it turns out, the plot is both familiar and joyously random, so one has no choice but to focus on the production and just go along with the ride.

And what a ride it is! The Drowsy Chaperone actually refers to a fictional 1928 show within a show (or rather “a musical within a comedy” as the tagline says) which features a cornucopia of stock characters from the heyday of American musical theater. This includes the self-absorbed romantic leads (Kevin Dietzler and Audrey Simmons); the very wealthy, very dim matron (Lindsay Mauck) and her long-suffering butler (Anthony Connell); the heavily accented Latin lover (Topher Layton); a pair of gangsters straight from central casting (Victoria Healy and Max Redman) and many others.

These characters must be played in broad vaudevillian style, vocally and physically. And every member of this cast delivers. There are invigorating showcase numbers, such as  Simmons in Show Off, Layton in I Am Aldolpho as well as Dietzler and Shaun Yates tap dancing through Cold Feet. 

Tiffany Christopher shines as the Drowsy Chaperone herself with As We Stumble Along, described as a “rousing anthem about alcoholism." But what thrilled me even more was when the entire ensemble displayed exquisitely coordinated comic timing. These moments were liberally sprinkled throughout, but a particular dropped cane bit in Act II deserves special mention. The choreography is stylistically spot on and superbly executed. My highest compliment to a show is that it is “tight." Kudos to Director/Choreographer Peter John Rios.

And so we come to "Man in Chair" (although, as my companion remarked, he spends very little time actually sitting in the chair). On the surface, Man is the quintessential wide-eyed uber-fan of musical theater, and Connor McAndrews enthusiastically invites us to share his joy and passion. But there’s also a great deal below the surface. While he seeks escapism via his favorite musical, he cannot avoid the encroachment of the less ideal reality of his life. With a masterfully nuanced performance, McAndrews more than meets this challenge. He engenders warm affection for his character, which makes the somewhat surreal final scene all the more affecting.

The production values are impressive. Jeff Reim’s clever set seamlessly transforms from a somewhat dingy New York apartment to multiple rooms of a mansion in the Hamptons. Timothy Lamont Cannon’s costumes and Lisa Miller Challenger’s wigs & hair transport us to 1928 society. Light and sound cues are intricate and demand split-second timing, so hats off to the operators in the booth.

In sum, The Drowsy Chaperone — much like the Marx Brothers comedies on which it is loosely modelled — is a madcap, raucous laugh-riot not to be missed!

See www.candlelighttheatredelaware.com.