‘The Foreigner’

Maurer Productions OnStage makes its debut at Kelsey Theatre with Larry Shue’s comedy.

By: Stuart Duncan
   Who knows how far playwright Larry Shue might have gone if his life had not been cut short by a fatal crash in 1985. Two of his comedies, The Nerd and The Foreigner, have become standards in repertory of community and college theaters around the country.
   The Foreigner is being staged at Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre by a new group, calling itself Maurer Productions OnStage. That seems reasonable, since John Maurer produced and directed the show. He and his wife run an interactive theater company with various family members involved in many productions.
   Both of the above plays have been hailed as "comic masterpieces," but, in truth, both are flawed. The storylines may be tightly constructed, but both lean hard to melodrama. And in both, the comedy, what there is of it, tends to be farce. The bumping of melodrama and farce is a dangerous area, mastered by only a few.
   The story takes place in the early 1980s. "Froggy" LeSueur (Mark Violi) is a British demolition expert who runs a training camp on an Army base in rural Georgia, near the fishing lodge run by an old friend and widow, Betty Meeks (Susan Schwirck). Froggy uses the lodge to put up visitors from England. This time the guest is Charlie Baker (Doug Edelson).
   Baker’s wife lies seriously ill in a London hospital, and Charlie himself is pathologically shy to the point of being mortally afraid of having to make conversation. In an attempt to take the pressure off, Froggy hits on the scheme of presenting Charlie as a foreigner who speaks and understands no English. Certain that this visitor is, in effect, deaf to all conversation, everyone soon begins discussing the most personal and confidential matters in his presence. Eventually Charlie stumbles into a Ku Klux Klan plot being hatched by local bigot Owen Musser (Dan Spalluto) and he is witness to the dark secrets of local minister, Rev. David Marshall Lee (David DiLiberto) and his pregnant fiancee, Catherine Simms (Meredith McLeod).
   The other character, Catherine’s brother, Ellard, is the town bumpkin and borderline idiot (James Bryan). Ironically, it is Ellard who begins to teach Charlie some English. Naturally everyone is astonished at the aptness of the pupil and that is the source of much of the humor of the evening. In past productions, much of the success of the venture has depended on the versatility of the actor playing Charlie. The same is true for The Nerd. Very few have been triumphant; it takes a Jim Carrey or a Rowan Atkinson to pull it off.
   It also takes a breath-holding pace to avoid all the inconsistencies in the script and this production seems to stall while characters are examined. Since the characters are absurd, or at the very least, unbelievable, such an approach is stultifying. But who knows what Larry Shue might have written had he learned to hone his scenes and tighten his dialogue?
The Foreigner continues at Kelsey Theatre, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road, West Windsor, through Jan. 16. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Tickets cost $12, $10 seniors/students/children. For information, call (609) 584-9444. On the Web: www.kelseyatmccc.org