'See How They Run' Is Fast And Frantic
‘See How They Run’ Is Fast And Frantic
By Ted Rancont. Jr.
(News Drama Critic)
More a riot than a comedy, the Civic Theatre’s frenetic production of the British farce | “See How They Run” kept the Lydia Mendelssohn stage and its audience jumping during most of two hours last night.
We left the theatre hoarse and I happy, but wishing the same material had been somewhat less energetically presented in something closer to 2 1/2hours.
Director Donald C. Lovel appears to have bent too far backward in his efforts to give the show the fast pace and lightning situation changes that this fragile play demands. Not content with training his lively cast to snap up their cues instantly, he also had them deliver their lines so fast and so loud that we in the seats never had a chance to think—or to savour.
Following the Laurel and Hardy rather than the Alec Guinness school of slapstick, Lovei thoroughly Americanized author Philip King's thoroughly British play. The result was I uproarious, but lacked the I finesse and wry humor latent I in the script.
When he wasn’t speeding up the lines, however. Lovel must have been very, very busy polishing and refining things. His handiwork showed to advantage in unexpected little quirks and starts that made each of his i characters a study in incipient madness.
AT ONCE the most and least stable personage was the fumbly Rev. Lionel Toop (the Vicar) created by William Taylor. Taylor managed always to have a hilarious small bank of white fog floating just past his eyebrows as he made momentous discovery after momentous discovery.
Constantly being discovered and sneaking out of it by the skin of her Pepsodent smile' was a bouncy, impish Penelope (the Vicar’s wiggly wife) made fresh and impossibly innocent by Lois Ouellette.
Equally fresh but not nearly so innocent was the Clive developed by Fred Ouellette. If it weren’t for his awful sincerity we would have hated him for being weak enough to start it all (the rat).
The Ouellettes gave us two of the evening’s best moments in a pair of knock-down, drag-out fights that had the audience laughing well beyond both the first and third-act curtains.
Jack G. O’Brien played the rabbity Rev. Arthur Humphry close to the way King underwrote him. with hysterical results. O’Brien's timing and nearsighted double-takes kept him, in control of the stage through; monumental confusion, much to Humphrey’s discomfort.
FROM INDOMITABLE battle-ax to inebriated bag of bones. Winnifred Pierce made a real, if slightly battered, person out of stock old character Miss Skillon. Though she grimaced too much at the start of the first act, Miss Pierce had all our sympathy in the second and third.
Helen Walker gave Ida, the maid, an uneven Cockney accent that bordered on Brooklynese, but maintained her character through body movements and gestures that stimulated sudden squeals of laughter throughout the show.
William Stokes made the Bishop of Lax too confused and insufficiently pompous, though his poses brought smiles.
J. B. Bullock’s irregular attempts at a Russian accent garbled his lines so that we had no clear picture of The Intruder, and we never believed in him.
Sanford Cohen forced his voice uncomfortably as Sergeant Towers. Our throats raw for him, we wished only that I he would stop talking.
Though the Civic Theatre production doesn’t realize all the fancier potential of "See How They Run,” it’s a quick evening of plain fun that will leave you laughing.