The Farce Side

CHARLEY'S AUNT ends, I hope, the plague of warhorse comedies, including Arsenic and Old Lace and Harvey, that has infested Harvard stages this season. One would think that every college student in America has seen or put on these plays too many times in high school.

Charley's Aunt

Written by Brandon Thomas

Directed by Frank A. Lawler

At the Winthrop House JCR

This weekend and next

Having said that, I should add that, as escapist entertainment goes, Charley is extremely funny.

Granted, the script of Charley is almost foolproof (thus its appeal, I suppose, for actors and directors). Because the play is a farce, its humor depends almost entirely on plot, rather than on more difficult elements like character development.

The plot creates humor in this comedy of manners through its byzantine machinations and convolutions. Incredible coincidences pull the characters into embarrassing situations, and only even more incredible coincidences can pull them out.

Oxford lads Jack (R. Donivan Barton) and Charley (Marc D. Peters) have invited Kitty (Kris Alexander) and Amy (Abigail Shapiro) to lunch in order to propose to them. Charley's aunt, the pretext for inviting the girls, sends word that she can't come. Through a Plot Machination and an Incredible Coincidence, the boys find a substitute "aunt": their friend Fancourt (Adam L. Schwartz) in full drag. A Plot Machination or two later, both Jack's father, Sir Francis (Billy Salloway) and the girls' guardian, Spettigue (Jon Hill) arrive, and both take a shine to the "aunt." Things get worse from there.

There is some mild satire poking fun at the British upper class, circa 1937. These twits are the sort whose servants laugh at them behind their backs. For them, propriety and gentility are all-important. Strong emotions are not allowed to upset the teacart. Jack describes his love for Kitty--"Well, this is the real thing. Marriage and all that."--as if it were a minor inconvenience. These characters have such stiff upper lips that they cannot kiss.

Most of the actors do a good job of playing stuffy, pathetic snobs. Barton is the best of these, and has the most consistent accent. Salloway is good as a faded remnant of British Raj, but the performance I saw, he destroyed the genteel atmosphere with an ad-libbed "Oh shit!" Alexander and Shapiro are a bit bland, though they are probably supposed to be. Constantine Contes, as Jack's manservant, bears the indignities and follies of his employer with wonderful heavenward eye-rolls

Special mention must be made of Schwartz, a master of the pratfall who once again proves that he is the best physical comedian on the Harvard stage. It is worth the price of admission to watch him try to play the cello, or blow smoke rings from his cigar while dressed as an old lady (and later try to kiss someone with the cigar still in his mouth). He convinces both as a foolish young aristocrat and a coquettish old lady. He is the most justified reason that Charley's Aunt should be put on, and that anyone should see it, yet one more time.