As 'The Fox on the Fairway' director George B. Miller explains compactly in his show's playbill notes, the 'force behind farce', is breathless, slighty absurd, wildly funny, romantically committed, and ultimately humbling nonsense that willfully trades logic for laughs. This latest in a string of comedies being presented at Pennsylvania Playhouse in Bethlehem, Pa is the quintessential example of Mr. Miller's contentions.
And that trade is worth every penny of your ticket price!
Imagine yourself in the taproom of bucolic Quail Valley Country Club somewhere in hedge-fund-era America where every gentlemen's handshake can be twisted into a plot for personal gain.
Enter 'Dickie Bell', a Trump-style chiseler who lures the somewhat daffy Henry Bingham, president of this club, into a crooked golf tournament wager. (Is there any other kind')
Fast upon learning that his club's best golfer has secretly switched to the enemy's side of the fairway, threatening him with imminent financial destruction, Henry happily discovers that his most recent hire, a stammering jack-of-the-every/master-of-the-unlikely assistant, Justin Hicks (as in 'just in time') is a scratch golfer who stands a swinging chance of saving him, the club, and, one might wish, the nation from ruin.
There are several obligatory threads of romance that create farcically necessary tripwires and entanglements---- Henry is in deep denial of his life-long lust for Pamela Peabody, ex-wife of Dickie who himself harbors serious designs on Henry's current spouse, Muriel, as all the while Justin stammers out a marriage proposal to the lovely but chronically ingenuous taproom waitress Louise Heinbedder, who in the course of events reveals herself to be washroom-challenged, dropping her engagement hoop down a goose-neck drain; proves not to be above giving her man a mulligan when nobody's looking; and when the story gets hopelessly buried in one of its many sand traps, turns out to be even slicker with a club head than Dickie's hired dew sweeper.
Foremost among his many gifts as a director is Mr. Miller's insistence upon fitting the right people in the right roles. And he does that in this current production of 'Fox' to the point that you can't imagine anyone else playing the parts he's given them.
There's Jeanie Olah, as Pamela, whose clothes cling to her like an evening gown after a channel swim, but who manages, Bette Davis-like, to sweep a fallen wet curl from her lovely countenance and to serve, with panache, a hearty meal of a laugh from another of playwright Ken Ludwig's many stale crumbs.
There's Brian Welsko's Justin, youthful, robust, and clueless, who channels James Stewart's indelible George Bailey with every apologetically jittery line he delivers.
Pat Kelly, as Henry, gives us an amusing and endearing performance as a befuddled Republican that is both theatrically comforting and politically terrifying.
John Corl, although not forsaking his customary stage charm, portrays Dickie's ruthless capitalist/tomb-raider convincingly enough to corl the hairs on the back of your neck.
Tatiana Torres, as Louise, and Tracy Weaver, as Muriel, play critical supporting roles to the bumbling, bungling, silly men to whom the script has bound them.
Speaking of support, Brett Oliveira's set and lighting accommodate everyone's needs beautifully. And Kate Scuffle's costuming perfectly signals the characters' social standings and their often ludicrous inner demons.
Despite great comic inventiveness and execution by its director and his actors, the shortcomings of Ludwig's text scuttle efforts to keep the show merrily afloat for its entire two hours' playing time.
Mr. Miller's direction is so strong, and his cast's performances seem so determined to survive the soggy text, that every actor on that stage was like a sailor refusing to die, water-logged rowers on a battered lifeboat, with George at the rudder while everyone else snatches thrashing fish to eat from the fearsome waves lapping over the deck, or bails cupped handfuls of water to keep the boat aright.
Still, the laughter they give us may be our best weapon against the other terrifying wager that threatens daily to bankrupt us of our very moral fiber, the one still playing out at that other country club, Mar-a-Lago.
So, "play it as it lays", Pa Playhouse. We need you for this!
'The Fox on the Fairway' continues at Pennsylvania Playhouse through June 17, 2018. Please call 610-865-6665 for information and tickets, or visit www.playhouse.org/tickets