Another Take On 'Pimpernel' Story

Another take on 'Pimpernel' story

Ann Arbor Civic Theatre production aims for an over-the-top farce

BY CHRISTOPHER POTTER

News Arts Writer

Everybody knows the based-vaguely-on-fact tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel - don’t they?

Surely folks have either read the famed 1905 semi-swashbuckler penned by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, or seen one or two of half a dozen movie/TV adaptations - haven’t they?

Count this writer as someone who’s spent nearly his entire life in awareness of the title “The Scarlet Pimpernel” - but who’s never gotten around to finding out precisely who the Pimpernel was or what it is he did.

“I hope there’s lots more theatergoers in the same situation,” says Ann Arbor Civic Theatre’s Jimmy Dee Arnold, whose revival of the Stratford Festival’s 2002 staging of this French-Revolution thriller opens Thursday at Washtenaw Community College’s Towsley Auditorium.

“I really hope the identity of the Pimpernel as well as the story itself is kind of a mystery to people who’ve never read or seen it,” says Arnold. “I’m hoping it’s one of those classics that comes back and surprises people.”

A bit of research reveals that Baroness Orczy’s gripping adventure novel chronicled the efforts of a group of English gentlemen - self-dubbed the League of 20 Men - to undertake daring rescue raids to save fallen French aristocrats from the guillotine during Robespierre’s Reign of Terror in 1790s Paris. The group’s leader was Sir Percy Blakeney - a dashing daredevil who feigned the air of a foppish British baronet, much in the mode of Zorro’s sissified alter-ego nobleman Don Diego.

Yet be warned: This reworking of the Pimpernel legend by late British writer Beverley Cross is a very different animal from its crossed-swords predecessors. Thrills and chills have been replaced by flat-out farce, in which Sir Percy - played by Civic’s Richard Casto - carries his fool’s identity to levels of slapstick idiocy, nearly matched in bumbling by the Pimpernel’s alleged nemesis, French special agent Chauvelin (Tom Underwood).

The third principal in what amounts to a love-and-war triangle is Sir Percy’s sexy wife, Marguerite (Alix Berneis), a Frenchwoman whose marriage to her double-life husband is decidedly odd, seeing as how they often seem to take opposing political sides.

All of which suits Arnold just fine: “It’s been said that melodrama is only laughable when played to extremes. And that’s what we’re going for. I’ve been telling my actors to just go over the top. That can be very tricky, and I’ve seen plenty of shows that shouldn’t have had that kind of overacting.

Arnold’s multitudinous group of players include such thespian mainstays as Robin Barlow (an old English school chum of playwright Cross), Andy Hoag, Catherine Zudak, Susie Berneis (who also designed the show’s gaudy costumes), Glenn Bugala, Kent Klausner (as the Prince of Wales), Ken Kasischke (as Robespierre), and many others.

“It’s basically a big show with lots of little roles,” Arnold says.

PREVIEW

'The Scarlet Pimpernel'

Who: Ann Arbor Civic Theatre.

What: Farcical take on swashbuckling tale.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. next Sunday.

Where: Towsley Auditorium in the Morris Lawrence Building on the Washtenaw Community College campus, 4800 E. Huron River Drive.

How much: Tickets are $19 general, $17 students/seniors. All Thursday tickets are $13. For reservations call (734) 971-2228.