Who's Under Where?

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Who’s Under Where?

Playwrights – Marcia Kash and Douglas E. Hughes based on material originally conceived by Ian Clark, Ian Deakin, Cheryl Hood, Marcia Kash and Cheryl Partington.

Production Company/Theatre space – Stage West

Length – 2 Act (2 hours 5 minutes one intermission.)

Genre/s – Farce

Premise – Two women, trying to secure a business deal for their lingerie business, go to a hotel room to hire models but are followed by their suspicious husbands and shenanigans ensue.

Why this play? Why now? – Farce is one of the stock-in-trade genres for dinner theatre.

Curiosities – So many curiosities, why are they doing this this way….? Why was one character decked out head to toe in fur during the heat of summer?

Notable Moment – Holdover from last show’s successful Sister Act, Preston Vendramin provides some laughs as he struts and poses, curiously with his own music track and lights.

Notable writing – Written in 1990, this play by Canadian playwrights has enjoyed multiple productions and has been translated into six languages. As the script mentions, it takes a leaf from Benny Hill. We think that the play ends when the women win – but wait! There’s more.

Notable performances – Camille Pavlenko and Anna Cummer look like they stepped right out of Melanie Griffiths’ Working Girl, but these working girls have all the energy of retailers on coke. Husbands, played by Dave Comeau and David Sklar, have the unenviable job of becoming male lingerie models (of course). Comeau looks sweetly vulnerable in his leopard loincloth and Sklar ends dressed as Twisted Sister meets Tim Curry. Veteran actor Mark Bellamy is the dapper Italian millionaire manages to anchor the action after he appears in act two.

Notable design/Production – It is tradition that characters end up hiding in farce and most times this is under beds and in closets. Set Designer Anton DeGroot curiously had two windows without glass -- that didn’t make sense. He also gave one poor actor a half cupboard to bend himself into. There were two under-foliaged plants to hide behind, that was as funny as the soldiers coming from Birnham Woods.

Notable direction – It takes a lot of work to take a professional cast, this talented, and make them look like they are in an amateur production.

One reason to see this show –– If you enjoy high energy cartoons, silliness, and great food this show is for you.