I met up with an old friend tonight, out at the PA Shakespeare Festival, "Around the World in 80 Days", and it was acquaintance well worth the renewing. I saw the production which was staged out there 7 or 8 years ago with essentially the same cast, (Im unsure about one of the five) and with essentially the same results: unrelieved hilarity.
The premise of the play revolves around the bet of a staunch Englishman, Phileas Fogg, who wagers he can circumnavigate the globe in less than 80 days, and he sets out to do so accompanied by his French servant, Passepartout.
Along the way they are pursued by a tenacious British detective who mistakes Fogg for a criminal.
This simple story requires the tremendously gifted cast of five, Richard B. Watson, Brad DePlanche, Eric Hissom, Christopher Patrick Mullen, and Anita Vasan, to play dozens of roles in multiple locales around the world.
It would be a horrendous undertaking for a less adroit group of players, but these actors go non-stop at high speed in a script that does not stop for a moments pause, throwing one word play or double entendre after another at the audience so fast it is simply breathtaking.
So too is the pace at which several of the actors change characters, disappearing from stage only to enter from another direction in a different costume at an astonishing speed.
The players appear to be engaged in a great game of silliness, but it is obvious this show has been directed with precision and rigor, and the technical feats are accomplished with no less degree of skill as well.
I sat house left and thought that perhaps those in the center and house right of the thrust stage might have been favored a bit more than those on house left, but I still got much more than my moneys worth.
The very happy audience seemed to agree.
Hats off to director Russell Treyz and the fine cast.
A Theatre Fan