Fans of those wacky film comedies from the 1930s and '40s will feel right at home with Seattle Repertory Theatre's current production, "Over the Moon." Rather than high art, it's good fun as a terrific ensemble of actors knock themselves out to entertain you.
Stephen Dietz' adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse's 1927 novel, "The Small Bachelor" falls short of vintage scripts like those by Billy Wilder and Charles Bracket ("Ball of Fire"), Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind ("My Man Godfrey") or Preston Sturges ("The Lady Eve"). But Dietz still delivers plenty of laughs, by way of "Plum," otherwise known as Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, the popular British humorist who gave us affable Bertie Wooster and his invincible valet Jeeves, the consummate gentleman's gentleman.
Director David Ira Goldstein dusts off the Prohibition era with familiar shtick, stereotypical characters and predictable plot twists, using words like hooch, slammer and pinch. The characters, all wannabes of one sort or another, romp through mistaken identities, ridiculous situations, romantic upheaval and financial confusion. Think boy wants girl, girl wants boy, girl's stepmother doesn't; girl's father does.
When George Finch meets Molly Waddington, everybody gets into the act, including the know-it-all friend who has a solution for every problem, a gypsy fortune teller with a secret past, a thief-turned-valet and his frisky, sleight-of-hand sweetheart, a snooty society matron and her rustic Western-wear husband, an uppity butler and a gullible policeman who fancies himself a poet.
"Over the Moon" touts a time when appearances were all, actresses scandalous, bohemians undesirable and relationships binding. That said, the production belongs to the 10 actors onstage at the Rep. R. Hamilton Wright endows George Finch with bumbling, boyish charm. Fortysomething Wright must have a magic elixir, for he plays the romantic lead with the dash of a 20-year-old. He's utterly believable as George Finch, a shy, small-town boy with big-city riches who left Idaho behind for New York City's Greenwich Village. A wannabe artist, he has more money than talent. In fact, he's the worst painter in the world, but the sweetest swain. He takes sincerity to levels of silliness when he falls head over heels for rich society miss Molly Waddington (Liz McCarthy), an adorable debutante who favors Finch's suit over that of the well-endowed English lord her uppity stepmother's shoving at her.
Hamilton Beamish (Bob Sorenson), Finch's well-connected best friend, writes self-help booklets and thinks he's an expert on everything, including love. So he offers to solve Finch's romantic dilemma with logic and reason until Mr. Smarty Pants falls under the spell of the femme-fatale fortuneteller Madame Eulalie (Kirsten Potter), a veiled vision in fringe couture.
Beamish brags he can make a poet out anyone in three weeks. Up steps his test subject, Officer Garroway and wannabe bard (Jeff Steitzer), an oafish but gullible cop intent on busting Prohibition violators. Giving his usual fine performance, Steitzer keeps the audience chuckling at Garroway's inept attempts to chase the "bad guys" and save the "good guys." Steitzer is especially hilarious when Garroway gives chase through pepper mace or goes undercover as his poetic nom de plume, Delancy Cabot, arbiter of bad fashion in garish, plaid jacket and a beret he wears only when sputtering his hopelessly bad verse.
Dietz - courtesy of Wodehouse - takes several swipes at genteel society. He aims his satire at Mrs. Waddington (Suzy Hunt), a pretentious, Upper East Side snob who gives herself airs and judges a man by his size of his fortune. After all, her first husband reigned as the Cheese King of Schenectady. She fancies herself trés elegant in a wisp of a hat, its tiny feathers bobbing around her head like a swarm of black spiders. The haughty matron still visits a fortuneteller once a week and chugs her hooch, but cringes at the word bohemian, referring to artists like Finch as "pitiful paragons of poverty." You just know she's headed for a delicious downfall.
Her second husband, Sigsbee Waddington, lacks certain, if not all, social graces. Ken Ruta, garbed in chaps and a 20-gallon hat, turns Sigsbee into a forgetful, big-voiced, wannabe cowboy who aches to go West where a man shoots his own bison and sleeps under the stars. Unfortunately, Sigsbee unwisely invested in a Hollywood motional picture company and lost his fortune. Or so he thinks.
However lofty Mrs. Waddington might be, her butler Ferris is even more so. David Pichette delivers a wicked Ferris with regal James Mason tones and an unflappable disdain. He even refuses to mix with the rest of Waddington staff; it would simply be too lowering.
Finch's valet is a far cry from Ferris. Mullet (Robert Guajardo), a reformed thief, keeps company with Fanny (Julie Briskman), an unreformed pickpocket. He wants to whisk her away from temptation to a little duck farm in upstate New York, but she can't resist when she gets one more offer she can't refuse.
Act Two's farcical action reaches Blake Edwards proportions - lots of physical comedy, door-slamming and revolving exits and entrances. Scott Weldin's set lends itself to these escapades, easily converting from a Greenwich Village rooftop into the Waddington's study and country estate garden. Even into the Purple Chicken speakeasy, where you can get shots of hooch if you know the wrong people and the right gesture. You'll hear lots of "You can get it" and "I'd like to get it" innuendos.
As Roberta Carlson's score provides a Gershwin-esque touch, "Over the Moon" piles on the schmaltz. But if you like silly, you'll love this show. And the ukulele finale sends you out of the theater humming. I'd call it an Arthur Godfrey moment, but only a few would "get it." So let's go with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. He plays a uke, as does Paul McCartney.
Freelance writer Starla Smith is a Queen Anne resident.[[In-content Ad]]
