The Gallery Players kicks off its new season
with "Bedroom Farce," a play featuring four couples,
one of which is suffering from serious relationship problems.
As "Farce" unfolds, both of the partners, together
and separately, attempt to work out their problems in the bedrooms
of the other three couples. The real star of the show is the
stage itself – three bedrooms presented simultaneously, and differentiated
by decor and lighting that tells the audience which set is "on."
Playwright Alan Ayckbourn was no stranger to this device when
he wrote and directed "Bedroom Farce" in 1975. Two
years earlier he had written and directed "The Norman Conquests,"
three interconnected plays in which the events of one weekend
are seen from the garden, living room and dining room of a house
in the country.
According to Ayckbourn’s program notes, "Someone jokingly
remarked after ’The Norman Conquests’ that there were very few
rooms left in the house for me to visit – except the bedroom
and the bathroom. (The bathroom came later, in ’A Small Family
Business.’) I stored the idea of a bedroom away for later."
The Gallery Players’ production is directed by Ted Thompson ("Fuddy
Meers"), who, assisted by Brian J. Massolini’s set design
and Russel Drapkin’s lighting design, keeps the play bouncing
from bedroom to bedroom without getting tiresome.
Ayckbourn writes that from the very beginning, "it crossed
my mind that if I did write a bedroom play, it might be more
interesting and unusual to avoid those more predictable elements
of bedroom behavior, namely sexual activity and sleeping."
Indeed, one couple, Ernest (Michael Janove) and Delia (Delores
Kenan), are the parents of the male half (Trevor) of the feuding
couple and seem at an age where hot chocolate is more tempting
than hot sex.
Another couple, Nick (D.H. Johnson) and Jan (Amy L. Smith), is
unable to consider sex because Nick is nursing a torn muscle
in his back. And the third occupants of a bedroom, Malcolm (Alex
Domeyko) and Kate (Inga R. Wilson), are more preoccupied with
assembling a night table than getting together for sex.
As for the battling Trevor (Daniel Damiano) and Susannah (Nichole
Allen), most of their energy is spent arguing, pummeling and
wrestling with each other in a less than erotic fashion.
Several of the actors are familiar to Gallery Players audiences.
Janove played the father in "Kafka’s Dick," and Cinderella’s
father in "Into the Woods." Johnson appeared in three
one-acts in the sixth annual Black Box Play Festival. Kenan played
Gertie in "Fuddy Meers," and Mag Folan in "Beauty
Queen of Leenane." They all deliver fine performances.
The other actors are making their debuts with the Gallery Players,
and we can only hope this will be the beginning of a long association.
"Bedroom Farce" is a physically grueling show. It contains
few lines that would be funny if not accompanied by appropriate
gestures and expression. And the only actor who does not have
several entrances and exits in almost every scene is Domeyko,
whose activity is limited to falling out of bed, lying crushed
under his wife and making room for Trevor, who insists on crawling
into bed with him.
Much of "Bedroom Farce" plays like a cerebral Three
Stooges episode with British accents. Ernest is accidentally
pushed into a bathroom. Trevor and Susannah struggle with a lamp,
while Malcolm and Kate try to save their property in a frantic
tug of war. But there’s not a single line this reviewer can remember
as having any particular cleverness.
If Ayckbourn is not exactly Shakespeare, he does provide us with
some insights into the nature of our own sexual hang-ups in the
21st century. Susannah must reassure herself periodically that
she is attractive and has nothing to fear. Kate worries that
she may be attracted to women or that she may not be "interesting"
to her husband. Malcolm is concerned that Jan’s former lover,
Trevor, may be better in bed.
Freed from societal constraints, it seems that men and women
today have taken on the fetters of personal doubt: are we adequate,
are we normal, are we desirable? Here Ayckbourn has discovered
the mother lode of humor, and the Gallery Players mine it for
all it’s worth.
The Gallery Players production of "Bedroom
Farce" plays through Sept. 21, Thursdays through Saturdays
at 8 pm, and Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are $15, $12 seniors and
children under 12. The Gallery Players is located at 199 14th
St. between Fourth and Fifth avenues in Park Slope. For reservations,
call (718) 595-0547.
