Wodehouse fans, rejoice! Bertie and Jeeves are back for another madcap romp through the frivolous world of English high society. This latest enterprise of London’s most confirmed bachelor and his unflappable servant involves no less than five fractious aunts, four pairs of squabbling lovers, seven locales, three butlers (one fake) and two dogs (one large, one small) —all played by a mere seven actors!
The intimacy of City Lit’s pocket-sized stage in the upper recesses of the Edgewater Presbyterian church, while facilitating Bertie’s lightning-swift ringside commentary, exacerbates the difficulties of multiple-role casting. With front-row spectators seated a bare six feet away, more than a simple swap of hats and coats are required if we are to keep the many personalities distinct throughout the fast-paced action.
Fortunately, the cast assembled by Kevin Theis display protean suppleness in their manipulation of physical stance, vocal flexibility and identifying mannerisms. (The play’s setting in a period where affectation was considered a mark of good breeding helps, too.) Joseph Wycoff is barely detectable beneath the personae of the lordly Esmond Haddock (heir to the Haddock headache-remedy fortune) and the dimwitted Augustus Fink-Nottle. Katherine Ripley makes an easy transition from the slinky Cora Pirbright to the tweedy Hilda Gudgeon. And the entrance of the formidable Dame Daphne Winkworth (described by Bertie as “a rugged light-heavyweight, with a touch of Wallace Beery”) will have audience members searching their playbills for clues to her portrayer.
Ann Bartek’s set—replete with cubbyholes, trap doors and reversible panels—establishes precisely the right tone of rampant anarchy bubbling beneath placid surfaces. Bartek is also to be credited for solving the problem (I’m not telling how) of producing a quartet of elderly crones who might well have inspired the invention of a painkiller capable of making millions. Robert Steel’s clarinet-driven incidental music evokes the giddy 1920s even as his precision-timed sound effects, along with Thomas K. Kieffer’s quick-change costumes and Joshua Micheals’ crayola-rosy lighting, enhance the screwball shenanigans.
At the center of it all, however, is Mark Richard’s eternally gullible Bertie Wooster and Page Hearn’s ever-resourceful Jeeves. Though rumored to be reaching retirement age for their roles, this audacious duo’s adventures together could well continue into their dotage-;what better than an “Uncle Bertie” to prove the adage about there being no fool like an old one?