Let’s get this straight:
“Move Over, Mrs. Markam,” The Ray Cooney/John Chapman play that Live Theatre Workshop opened last weekend, makes no sense.
It’s ridiculous beyond measure. Frantic, improbable, and at times just plain stupid.
In short, it’s like a lot of Cooney farces. Live Theatre keeps his royalty checks coming — a farce by the playwright pops up on the company’s stage every few years.
And why not? There are guaranteed laughs, no matter how over-the-top silly it is.
And “Move Over, Mrs. Markham” is over-the-top silly. And then some.
The LTW production is directed by Stephen Frankenfield, who has performed in a few of those Cooney plays at the theater.
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The story goes like this: A married couple, the Markhams, is planning an evening out. So a number of people plan an evening in the Markhams’ apartment: Their interior designer has arranged a meet-up with their housekeeper. Henry Lodge, Philip Markham’s partner in a publishing firm, has arranged a neat little affair with a telephone operator he has made a connection with. Henry’s wife, Linda, has arranged a tryst with a buffoonish man in response to her husband’s wandering ways. Everything converges, clashes, confounds at the Markhams’ tidy London apartment.
Here’s what we liked — and didn’t like.
Likes:
- Christopher Younggren
- is new to LTW’s stage, but an old hand at acting — and it shows. His role as Henry Lodge, the philandering husband with a smooth way about him, was underplayed to perfection.
- Shanna Brock
- is rooted as the well-put-together Mrs. Markham, who slowly unravels.
- India Osborne
- , also new to LTW, perfectly plays an uptight and very popular children’s author, Olive Smythe, who shows up at the Markhams’ apartment in hopes of convincing Philip to publish her best-selling books — seems her previous publisher has started printing porn, and she just does not approve. Wait until she gets a load of the sexy shenanigans at the Markam abode.
- The timing was pristine. Farce depends on it, and this production delivers. With five doors on LTW’s tiny stage, and several pieces of furniture, not a beat was missed with opening and closing those doors, jumping over furniture, running around, hiding, barging in and out. The production was like a well-oiled machine. Frankenfield and his cast get the credit for that.
Didn’t like so much:
- With a few exceptions, the characters started on a hysterical level, giving them no place to go. You long to say, “shhh, calm down; there’s plenty of time yet to go over the top.”
- The play just isn’t very good. Cooney loves his British sex farces — most of his works fall into that genre. And while he’s a popular playwright, he isn’t a particularly inventive or interesting one. This is the fifth Cooney LTW has staged since 2004. It may be time for a good, long break from him. If farce is fancied, let’s hope they go for much smarter ones by the likes of Alan Ayckbourn or Michael Frayn.