Surveying our ecletic arts scene, from the galleries to the stage.
Stage comedies -- especially manic sex farces like Boeing-Boeing, playing at Fort Worth's Circle Theatre -- often appear to be presentations of total chaos where no element of order has any chance of survival.
But, if you talk with the actors and directors trying to negotiate the roiling waters of madcap theater, you learn that looks can be deceiving.
"Comedy has to run on a clock and be very rigid. But it has to look really easy," says Robin Armstrong, who is directing the show, which opens Circle Theatre's 30th season. "It needs to look like Fred Astaire dancing. Everybody should go, 'Oh, I could do that.' But, of course, very few people can."
"It's all about the timing," says Krista Scott, who plays the maid, Bertha, in the show. "My character, for instance, is the interrupter. I've got to come in just as they are about to kiss or something. I'm on other side of the wall trying to feel when it is going to happen."
Because of the split-second timing that comedies such as this demand, Armstrong says the director must take a different approach.
"It's much more structured. In dramas, I tend to be more free-form for the actors and allow them to have more flow and freedom to have emotional growth during the show. But when you're doing farce, it's step one, step two, step three. I am much more of dictator as far the timing goes."
Animal logic
Armstrong's dictatorial ways have served her well at Circle, where she has directed a number of successful comedies, including Incorruptible (2009) and Bach at Leipzig (2010).
"I like to direct everything, but for some reason, I seem to have a knack for this comedy thing," says Armstrong, adding that she was raised in a witty and humor-loving household where Monty Python and the Marx Brothers were among family favorites.
Armstrong, who also did the show's costuming, will have plenty of experienced help in achieving her goals with this particular production. Two of her actors, Andy Baldwin and Morgan McClure, just closed a production of Don't Dress for Dinner, a comedy by the same author (Swiss-born Frenchman Marc Camoletti) that is often referred to as a sequel to Boeing-Boeing, at Theatre Arlington.
Those would seem like excellent (and fresh) credentials, but, especially since Baldwin directed the Arlington production, isn't it going to be a bit odd to now be an actor in a related show?
"With anybody other than Robin, I think it would be a difficult transition," says Baldwin, a highly physical actor who is known for his agile comedic portrayals. "I have a completely different approach to directing. But I know that when Robin is directing, we play by her rules."
Baldwin, a highly intuitive performer, is also finding that he takes a much different approach to acting than his more cerebral leading ladies.
"I feel like I am an animal at a zoo when we're rehearsing," says Baldwin. "[The actresses] can talk about their characters until I'm sick of hearing it, really. I'm just the opposite. I just read it and do it and cross my fingers that it's funny. So I learn so much from the women. I've never been part of a cast this smart."
Taking off
Boeing-Boeing is a prototypical sex farce, filled with slamming doors, naughty innuendo and scantily clad actresses. It debuted in France in the early 1960s and has been a mainstay on stages all over the world (particularly in America and Great Britain) since. It is believed to be the most frequently performed play of its kind ever written.
The plot deals with Bernard (Ashley Wood), a successful Parisian architect (changed to a Brit in Armstrong's version) who is trying to juggle three fiancees -- all of whom are stewardesses (this is the early 1960s, remember). He achieves this by being extremely well versed in airline schedules, shoving one girlfriend out the door just as the next one taxis in.
His plan works well until the folks at Boeing Aircraft introduce a new, faster jet. If you have ever seen a sex farce, you know what happens next. With the help of his friend Robert (Baldwin) and maid Bertha, Bernard tries to maintain his various ruses with increasingly complicated and hilarious results. And just about all of it is a question of timing.
"A show like this gets better with each performance," says Baldwin. "On the closing night of Don't Dress for Dinner, I told the cast, 'Now we're ready to open.'"
And McClure points out that the cast will not really be sure of its timing until performances begin.
"You can't get a sense of what's really happening until that last piece of the puzzle -- the audience -- is in place," says McClure, who plays Bernard's German fiancee, Gretchen. "There are parts where the timing is changed if there is a laugh in the middle of it."
