Reviews 2003
Reviews 2003
✭✭✭✩✩
by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin,
directed Daryl Cloran
Theatrefront, Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto
December 5-20, 2003
Young Louise Maske had been stretching to get a better glimpse of the Kaiser as he passed by in a parade when her underpants fell down around her ankles. German playwright Carl Sternheim's satirical 1911 farce delves into the upshot of this breech of etiquette. The Shaw Festival presented this work in 1993 in a version called The Unmentionables. Comedian Steve Martin's new adaptation, packed with double entendres, is sharper and funnier and TheatreFront's production, though not without flaws, is a much more gleefully wicked entertainment.
Sternheim's goal is to skewer the hypocrisy and philistinism of the German bourgeoisie that Louise’s husband Theo (Brian Marler) embodies. He loves order, cleanliness and the supposedly inviolable sexual and social hierarchies of his day. He rages about the “scandal” Louise (Holly Lewis) has brought on his good name. What the scandal does bring are two lodgers seeking to rent the Maskes’ spare room to gain access to the lovely Louise. One is a tailor (Dylan Trowbridge) who hides his Jewishness to sign the lease. The other is a dandy and would-be poet (Evan Buliung). Meanwhile, Louise's sex-obsessed neighbour Gertrude (Kate Lynch) encourages the innocent Louise to have an affair.
Director Daryl Cloran has had the actors deliberately push their style to the border of caricature, but with varying results. Marler's braying boor is funny but way over the top. Trowbridge’s approach wavers. But the hilariously pompous Buliung and delectably lubricious Lynch catch just the right pitch between realism and parody and steal the show.
Louise, the focus of everyone's attention, Cloran has unaccountably made into a cipher with a Minnie Mouse walk. If the sometimes inaudible Lewis could show some real, cumulative effect of Louise’s gradual awakening to her husband's tyranny and her own desires, The Underpants would make a bolder impression.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-12-11.
Photo: Holly Lewis and Evan Buliung. ©2003 Theatrefront.
2003-12-11
The Underpants