Pass the Butler

Pull out your white gloves, straighten up your bow tie, and shine up your spats because P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves Takes Charge has arrived at the pudding Theater.

Jeeves Takes Charge

With Edward Duke

At the Hasty Pudding Theater

Through November

Jeeves, the butler, is the sure-five cure for hangovers, lack of fashion sense and meddling aunts. The play depicts how Reginald Jeeves, a gentleman's gentleman, first meets his employer Bertram "Bertie" Wooster and starts to run his life.

In this drama Edward Duke has taken a character created by early 20th century writer P.G. Wodehouse and put him into a series of storytelling situations. The stories however, never cease to delight and amuse because Duke keeps pulling a number of comic, eccentric characters out of his hat.

What is amazing about this show is the wide range of characters into whom Duke ably transforms himself. Duke's expert manipulation of body language, speech patterns and facial expressions allow the audience to follow easily as he moves from one character to the next. And whether he plays Jeeves with his impeccable British accent and completely upright posture, or whether slouching and guffawing as Wooster or whether he carelessly holds a cigarette while gesticulating wildly as Florence, Duke always manages to make the audience forget that he is only one man playing a variety of roles.

Although there are several characters in the show, Jeeves, or Wooster, is always the narrator. The humor that Duke uses in portraying them is definitely the glue that keeps this show together. Both Jeeves'--and Wooster's--running commentary on the present action keeps the audience roaring.

When Wooster tells the story about how he and his former fiancee, Florence Cray, try to steal his uncle Willoughby's manuscript and are foiled by his uncle and Edwin, the boy scout, the audience engages in non-stop laughter. Wooster's description of his uncle trying to make him confess is particularly hilarious. Wooster says: "It was most disgusting spectacle--this white-haired man who should have been thinking of the hereafter stood there lying like an actor."

Subtle sarcasm pervades Duke's performance, and the success of this technique is probably due in large part to Gillian Lynne's direction. in the middle of Act I Jeeves begins telling his part of the story by saying "Employers are like horses--both need to be managed." The timing of the line, combined with the slight smirk that Duke wears on his face as he delivers it, gives credence to the great chemistry that Lynne and Duke share.

The ending of the play, however, is slightly disappointing. While the bit about Gussie Fink-Nottle getting drunk for the first time and then handing out academic awards to small children is amusing, the parts in which Wooster bursts into song run a little long.

Wooster's rendition of "Sonny Boy," accompanied with tap dancing, was done with enough finesse to warrant a snicker, but by the time he started into "Every Cloud Has a Silver lining," the snicker had faded to a grunt. Duke builds up an expectation for greatness that is just not realized. The rest of the play moves at such a schizophrenic pace that this sluggish type of ending leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

But this ending is only a minor flaw in an otherwise perfectly polished piece of work. Duke's energy in switching from role to role and from adventure to adventure remains high in spite of his numerous costume changes. And the foibles of these everyday-type characters keeps the laughter flowing steadily.