When one door closes another one opens, and closes, and opens, and closes, and . . .
The Whidbey Playhouse production of the classic British farce “See How They Run,” features an endless amount of doors being jerked open and slammed shut, and English-born Director Don Wilkins said that’s how it should be.
“You measure a farce by the number of doors slamming,” he said.
The plot of the comedy centers around a case of switched identities and the lengths the characters — and I do mean characters — go to in order to keep their secrets while finding out everyone else’s.
Wilkins has directed many plays in his lifetime, and considers comedy to be much more of a challenge than drama, both for the director and the actors.
“Timing is everything,” he said. “It’s all pace, pace, pace. It’s exhausting for the actors.”
Indeed, the pace of “See How They Run” never lets up, providing an exhilarating and hilarious ride from start to finish.
Wilkins said he was impressed with how rapidly the nine-member cast learned their lines and came “off book,” enabling them to fully develop their characters.
Perhaps it helped that the cast are all stage veterans, both at the Playhouse and beyond.
Kent Junge returns to the Playhouse after a four year absence from the area to play the Reverend Lionel Toop, a befuddled vicar who has somehow managed to persuade an American actress to marry him and move to a small English town full of busybodies.
Junge brings rare clerical experience to the role, having played a clergyman four times previously, and been a minister in real life in the 1980s. His last role with Whidbey Playhouse was as Pizza Face Petrillo in “Lie, Cheat and Genuflect.”
Not that it’s a dignified role. He spends much of the play clad only in his underwear and a blanket.
The Rev. Toop’s wife, Penelope Toop, is played by Whidbey Playhouse veteran Dulcey White Lovell. As always she handles her role, and the lightening fast dialogue, like a pro.
She most recently performed in the Playhouse production of “Godspell,” and is an assistant director of the upcoming “Wizard of Oz.”
Hardy VanRy, from Anacortes, pulls out all the stops as Corporal Clive Winton, who finds himself sucked into the twisted plot hatched by Penelope who just wants to go out on the town with her old friend.
VanRy has a face made of rubber, and it is twisted into contortions that are guaranteed to make you laugh. The amount of energy he puts into the role is amazing.
While Junge brings a sort of John Cleese persona to his role, reminiscent of the Birtish comedy Fawlty Towers, VanRy is like Mr. Bean with a voice. Only taller.
This is VanRy’s Whidbey Playhouse debut, but he has acted in more than 20 shows at local theaters. His roles include Eugene the Nerd in “Grease,” and Linus in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”
Perhaps his all-out acting style is a foil for his real-life job, where he is executive director of Skagit Habitat for Humanity. His bio says he lives in Anacortes and is “desperately single.”
Mary Kay Hallen plays Miss Skillon, the town busybody who becomes embroiled in the crazy antics at the Toop residence.
Hallen has worked with the Playhouse for 11 years, from “Once Upon a Mattress” to “Death Trap.”
Fernando Duran, who most recently played Jesus in the Playhouse production of “Godspell,” is back in another heavenly role, this time as the mild-mannered Rev. Arthur Humphrey.
Rounding out the cast are Norm Boynton as the Bishop of Lax, Berry Meaux as Constable Towers, Matthew Powell as the intruder, and Gail Liston as Ida, the Toop’s long-suffering maid.
Wilkins, who speaks with a Kensington English accent, said he gave the players the option of whether to affect an accent or not.
While most of them choose not to try it, Liston bravely went with a thick cockney accent for the maid role.
For her, it works well. It would be difficult, and perhaps unfair, to say which character was the funniest, but Liston is a crackup. She also has some serious acting credentials, holding a Master of Fine Arts in Acting and having taught theater at several colleges.
“See How They Run” is a non-stop belly laugh, well worth the price of admission. Let’s just hope the doors hold up through the three-week run.
You can reach News-Times reporter Marcie Miller at mmiller@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611
See the show
“See How They Run,” by Phillip King, hits the stage April 2 to 17 at Whibey Playhouse, 730 SE Midway Blvd in Oak Harbor. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, plus a 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinee. Saturday, April 3, is bargain night, with $2 off admission.
Tickets are $11 adults, $9 youth. Groups of 10 or more, except on bargain night, receive $1 off per ticket. Call the box office at 679-2237 for tickets or more information.
