This 'Play' is a rollicking good time

Clever dialogue and a comic premise set the stage for Asolo actors to have fun. And they do.

By John Bancroft, Special to the Times
Published January 10, 2008

The Play's the Thing
Continuing in repertory through March 13 at Asolo Rep's Mertz Theatre, 5555 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. (941) 351-8000 or toll-free 1-800-361-8388.

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SARASOTA - The Play's The Thing is a tasty little bonbon. It also is a theatrical shaggy dog story and a showcase for actors who enjoy going over the top when the role demands it.

Chief among those having a good time in Asolo Repertory Theatre's production is Bryan Torfeh, a fine actor playing a mediocre actor. As Almady, he cheerfully chews up the scenery and spits it out, especially in the second act, which offers 38 of the funniest minutes on stage this season.

No wonder the dialogue is so pleasing. Ferenc Molnar's comedy was adapted by P.G. Wodehouse, creator of the endearingly bumbling aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his manservant, the invaluable, long-suffering Jeeves.

There is something of Jeeves in Douglas Jones' portrayal of Sandor Turai, half of the Broadway musical-writing duo Mansky and Turai. Jones gets to lead the band and deliver the zingers, which he does with style, while James Clarke ably plays Mansky as straight man.

The Play's the Thing is set in an oceanfront Palm Beach hotel in the spring of 1934. The place may provide guests the services of a butler, appropriately played for laughs by Bradford Wallace, but the walls in the new wing are paper thin, which sets up the premise for all that follows.

Mansky and Turai's favorite leading lady, Ilona Szabo, played by the delightful Dana Green, is already in residence when the playwrights and their young composer, who is engaged to Szabo, claim the suite next door. Late that night the trio overhears a conversation from the other side of the wall that makes it sound very much as if Almady is having some success in pressing his affections upon Szabo.

The young composer, played by Asolo Conservatory student Juan Javier Cardenas, is, predictably, crushed, which threatens to throw the success of the writers-composer-leading lady team into a cocked hat.

Something must be done. Turai takes over and in a couple of predawn hours pens a play that will explain away the overheard seduction and defuse the threat to the happiness of all - except Almady, who is set up to take the fall. He does, with gusto. His increasingly exasperated delivery of polysyllabic strings of French place names and titles, part of his punishment, is the highlight of the evening.

John Bancroft is a freelance writer who lives in Bradenton.

[Last modified January 10, 2008, 11:43:23]