Off-Broadstreet Theatre takes on Dave Freeman’s British farce.
By: Stuart Duncan
A Bedfull of Foreigners at Off-Broadstreet Theatre in Hopewell is a very minor British farce that will make you laugh. It is packed with semi-naked bodies dashing in and out of closets, bathrooms and double beds. The entendres are as double as the beds; the jokes run from silly to inane. But you will laugh and you know what? With the rush of the holidays and the pressure of the New Year laughing can’t be all bad.
The farce (the playwright calls it a comedy, but, believe me, it’s a farce) was written by Dave Freeman, a Britisher who obviously absorbed Alan Ayckbourne, Ray Cooney and the like, but chose to write for Benny Hill.
We are at a residential hotel in France, somewhere near the German border. The combination of the heavily flowered wallpaper and the garish patterned rugs on the floor remind us why we always have had problems with those countries. Specifically, we are in a large double bedroom, apparently the only vacant room for miles around. An officious hotel manager (Philip Katz) with wandering hands and a diffident hotel handyman (Robert Thick) who must handle all the needed tasks, as might be expected, both book the room.
And so a young couple, the Parkers (Gary Van Lieu and Lauren K. Brader), gratefully plan to relax until she discovers a ring missing, apparently left at a petrol washroom hours back. She impulsively takes off. Now the second couple, older well, at least the husband (Tom Stevenson) checks in. He has with him a young French girl picked up in his travels (Diana D’Ascoli). Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, his wife (Catherine Rowe) is there as well, planning to surprise him on his birthday.
We have all the needed ingredients: two couples, husbands and wives separated; an extra-saucy girl who does a nightclub act as a nun; and a pair of hotel employees to barge in at inconvenient times; bedroom jokes lurk in every corner; plus the customary gender preferences, gender expectations and gender differences. Nothing really new or clever but you will laugh.
And the cast makes it easy: Gary Van Lieu, as the younger husband, handles even the silliest situations with polish and style. Tom Stevenson and Catherine Rowe, as the older couple, banter with the best in the area. Ms. Brader and Ms. D’Ascoli have little to do except look pretty and sexy. Both do both. Just about everybody gets to shed some garments at some point. Several get to do it more than once.
Director Bob Thick has paced the show so that you really don’t have a chance to realize just how bawdy one joke is before you are halfway through the next. And somewhere along the line, you will realize that you are laughing your head off.
Happy holidays.
A Bedfull of Foreigners continues at Off-Broadstreet Theatre, 5 S.Greenwood Ave., Hopewell, through Jan. 22. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2:30 p.m.; doors open one hour earlier for dessert and beverages. Tickets cost $25.25 Sat., $23.75 Fri., Sun. ($22 senior rate Sun.). For information, call (609) 466-2766.