The Denver Center Theatre Company plans to leave ’em laughing. A revival of the Marx Brothers’ “Animal Crackers” ends the company’s fine 2013-14 season with a bang, zippy lines and plenty of physical schtick. It plays the Stage Theatre through May 11.
While this may sound to theatergoers like their brains can take the night off after a season that featured a doomed salesman named Willy Loman and the differently morose Prince Hamlet, author Scott Weems suggests otherwise.
“Comedy extends our mental stamina and improves our mental flexibility,” he wrote recently in an article for the Wall Street Journal.
The writer of “Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why” came up in a conversation with Bruce Sevy, director of the frolicking tale.
“There was a picture of Groucho, and he used a couple examples of the Marx Brothers’ verbal humor. I got about half of it,” he says.
“It’s almost a stream-of-consciousness clowning. Particularly with Groucho’s stuff,” Sevy continues. “He starts on one thing, and then he just goes on a riff, almost a jazz riff of seemingly unrelated stuff. Well, they are unrelated. There’s no linear logic to it. There’s Groucho logic to it.”
“Animal Crackers” — written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind — returns Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo to the stage where they so brilliantly began in the mid-1920s.
Sure, film helps them endure. And the TV game show “You Bet Your Life” made an icon of Groucho. But the stage launched the New York City-bred brothers.
“Animal Crackers” finds Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho), recently returned from an expedition to Africa. Mrs. Rittenhouse, a Long Island socialite, throws a party in his honor. When a painting is stolen, lunacy ensues.
Partaking of the Vaudeville tradition, “Animal Crackers” is as verbally agile as it is physically nimble. It’s not simply Groucho’s keepers — “Uruguay? Well, you go Uruguay and I’ll go mine” — it’s Harpo’s deft and mute comedy. Sevy recalls watching them as a kid. “I liked Harpo, who was kind of like a kid. Because Harpo can’t speak — or doesn’t speak. When you’re a child, you identify with him in some ways. I think a lot of Groucho’s humor went over my head.”
The director got reacquainted with the brothers as an adult when he had a chance to do the musical comedy “A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine,” which pays homage to the Marx Brothers in its second act.
“I went back as an adult and watched all the movies and read up on them and became really fascinated,” Sevy recalls. “And my respect grew for what they were doing and the brand of humor, and where it fits in the development of American theater.”
Adapted by Henry Wishcamper, this version of “Animal Crackers” has nine actors taking on 29 characters. “Expect quick changes,” says Sevy, sounding rather pleased at the possibilities.
He also is glad to report that Wishcamper’s adaptation restores a number of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby’s songs to the musical.
“They’re wonderful, very optimistic, Tin Pan Alley really. We’re not talking Sondheim here. But of its genre, it’s very infectious.”
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567, lkennedy@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bylisakennedy
“ANIMAL CRACKERS.” Book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. Music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Adapted by Henry Wishcamper. Directed by Bruce Sevy. Featuring Jim Ferris, Celia Tackaberry, M. Scott McLean, Jonathan Brody, Jonathan Randell Silver and Stephanie Rothenberg. Through May 11. 2 hours, 20 minutes. At the Stage Theatre, 14th & Curtis streets. Tickets $43-$65 via denvercenter.org or 303-893-4100.
