DON’T BOTHER FOR DINNER
The North Coast Repertory Theater is offering two hours of exceedingly lightweight summer theater in the French farce Don’t Dress for Dinner. And being a typical French farce, the play revels almost exclusively in ostentatious slapstick with an erotic edge. My large Sunday matinee audience seemed to love every unsubtle moment of the show. So what follows is something of a minority report.
Don’t Dress for Dinner occurs in a country house near Paris. Basically, the play follows the frantic attempts of two couples to carry on adulterous relationships, each couple unaware that their partners are cheating on them. The confusions start almost immediately and in a matter of minutes everyone is overwhelmed by misunderstandings and identity mix-ups.
The muddles intensify with the appearance of a cook who was hired to prepare a romantic meal for one of the adulterous twosomes and is mistaken for another philanderer. By the intermission panic reigns supreme, the action continuing in the second act with much comic violence and a rising decibel count.
The laws of probability do not weigh heavily on the plot. Embarrassing confrontations are avoided with split second exits and entrances courtesy of the set’s four doors and a staircase. The identity confusions recalled the old “Who’s on First” comic routine popularized by Abbott and Costello. Miraculously the erotic tangles are sorted out by the end of the play, freeing the couples to resume their infidelities with no hard feelings.
Director Christopher Williams‘ high energy direction turns much of the play into a track meet as the characters dash about the stage to keep their frantic romantic deceptions from blowing up in their faces. Brandon J. Pierce delivered a long breathless summary of the labyrinthine plot near the end that earned him an ovation for his endurance, if not for his intelligibility. But the acting honors go to Kim Morgan Dean who makes a credible character out of one of the cheating women. The entire cast works hard but I thought Dean turned her character into the most believable figure on the stage.
The physical production fits nicely into to the compact stage space occupied Marty Burnett‘s realistic and functional single set. Matthew Novotny designed the lighting, Elisa Benzoni the costumes, Chris Leussman the sound, and Kevin Williams the props.
French playwright Marc Camoletti‘s farce has been revived often since it opened in 1987, even appearing on Broadway in 2012, and it’s easy to see why. There will always be an audience for funny characters awash in sexual innuendo. There are no profundities in Don’t Dress for Dinner and no salacious vulgarity to offend. The audience ate up the preposterous plot, but I watched all the uproar in stoic silence.
photos by Jason Niedle
Don’t Dress for Dinner
North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach
Wed and Thurs at 7; Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7
ends on August 18, 2024
for tickets ($65 to $79), call 858.481.1055 or visit North Coast Rep
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I never understood why Camelotti’s plays have been hits in London and New York. His plays are formulaic and his characters are stereotypes. His use of rapid-fire dialogue and elaborate misunderstandings are overly engineered and lack the feel of genuine spontaneity.