Will Rice Theater's latest a Farce to be reckoned

By Joe Dwyer     11/12/09 6:00pm

After a two-year hiatus, the phoenix that is Will Rice College's theater program has risen from the ashes in the form of Unnecessary Farce, a hilarious comedy of errors directed by Will Rice junior Amara DiFrancesco, which involves nothing more than seven people, two motel rooms and eight doors. The plot, originally penned by Paul Slade Smith, starts out simply enough, with police officers Eric Sheridan and Billie Dwyer (played by Sid Richardson College senior Anish Patel and Will Rice freshman Mary Nelson, respectively) staked out in a motel room. The two monitor the video camera set up in the adjacent room that is set to record a meeting between Mayor Meekly (Will Rice sophomore Geoffrey Holmes) and accountant Karen Brown (Lovett College junior Sarah Lyons), who has found some interesting discrepancies with the town's books.

But before Mayor Meekly and Ms. Brown can get down to brass tacks, the local Scottish mafia and their thickly accented, kilt-wearing hitman, who goes only by Todd (Wiess College sophomore Matt Banks), gets involved in the case of the missing money. What began as a simple stakeout quickly spirals out of control, and the amount of running and door-slamming is enough to make your head spin.

Unnecessary Farce is a play that thrives on delivery, and the cast has done an excellent job working on the comedic timing of their lines. The dialogue is clear and snappy, even when Banks launches into his crazed Scottish brogue, and the blocking and interaction between the actors on the small stage never impedes a single punch line.

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Rather than giving realistic and accessible portrayals of their respective parts, the actors have made their characters come across as overblown, exaggerated cartoon caricatures, which only adds to the fun. Patel and Nelson initially appear to be a pair of professional cops, but the audience will quickly find them to be a couple of endearingly oblivious buffoons. Banks' portrayal is a certain show-stealer: He spends most of his time on stage screaming at the other characters until he turns red in the face and his accent gets so thick that they can no longer understand him - with the exception of Dwyer, who then has to translate for everyone else.

Rounding out the cast are the parts of Agent Frank, the shifty and mysterious head of town hall security (played by Wiess junior Jacob Pflug), and the ever-so-sweet Mrs. Meekly (Will Rice sophomore Sara Rhodes), wife of Mayor Meekly. Both enter the stage as minor characters, but suffice it to say that they are very important to the resolution of the plot.

The homey stage is divided symmetrically into two spaces to create the motel rooms. Each is furnished with a bed and a dresser, in addition to a closet, bathroom and entry doors, as well as two more doors that separate the adjoining rooms. The action makes full use of the space, with characters flying in and out of doorways, hiding behind doors, even at times getting knocked unconscious by them. Much like The Odd Couple, Will Rice Theater's last play before Unnecessary Farce, the set is cozy and intimate, with the front row of seats situated mere feet from the action.

The only aspects of the play that come up short are the more physical parts of the performance, such as Dwyer trying to use her "Tallahassee Flip" takedown move on Todd, or the multiple times some of the actors end up wrestling in bed with each other. That's not to say these portions of the play look bad, per se, but they just aren't as strong as the rest of the performance and thus stick out.

But the uneven tackling does not prevent Unnecessary Farce from being a winner. The narrative and dialogue will have audience members groaning and laughing through the duration of the performance, and the tight execution means there is never a dull moment onstage.

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