“The Foreigner” is such a staple of community theatre, with its wealth of stock characters and silly fun, that I was a bit surprised to find it on the bill of fare for the equity Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
I had seen it twice at small local playhouses over the years and smiled my way through the absurd turns of events in playwright Larry Shue’s nutty farce, but I was quite unprepared to be blown away by the increasingly ridiculous whimsy and flat-out hilarity dished up at the main stage PSF Festival theatre version on opening night.
Their large stage is highly decorated as a Georgia country lodge in what can only be called southern kitsch, where the story revolves around the very complicated shenanigans of a young man who pretends he cannot speak English amidst the other members of the local establishment.
My biggest problem with this play is that the plot line is thin even as farces go.
However, the sure-footed director Jim Helsinger has chosen his sterling cast perfectly.
From the deus ex machina character Sgt. Froggy Le Sueur (Carl Wallnau), the sweet old lady hotelier Betty Meeks (Jane Ridley), the virginal Southern belle Catherine Simms (Marnie Schulenberg), her stupid younger brother Ellard Simms (David Button), the righteous parson Rev. David Marshall Lee (Zach Robidas), the scary redneck Owen Musser (Anthony Lawton) and ‘the foreigner’ Charlie Baker’ (Jacob Dresch), these superb players fulfill every stock character to the nth degree and beyond, insisting you forget all plot inconsistencies and just come along for the zany ride.
But the title character must be singled out in the stunning performance of Jacob Dresch, who delivers a knockout performance as Charlie Baker, the ‘foreigner.’
Mr. Dresch takes full advantage of every absurd excess of the plot as he floats through a rarefied ether somewhere between slapstick and ballet to lead the cast through to its frothy and bravura conclusion.
Kudos to Mr. Helsinger for brisk direction of a script that could have easily bogged down in southern drawl but did not.
Joyful silliness and much laughter abound at PSF’s “The Foreigner.”