Stageloft’s ‘Net’ proves its worthBy Paul Kolas Telegram and Gazette Reviewer STURBRIDGE— Bigamy redux is on hilarious display once again in Stageloft Repertory Theater’s breathlessly funny follow-up to last year’s “Run For Your Wife.” Playwright Ray Cooney seems to have a hard time of letting go of London taxi driver John Smith’s matrimonial double life, and we can only be thankful for the wild humor it inspires. By the time “Caught in the Net” takes a deep breath during its surprising conclusion, the audience is also likely to take one too from laughing so profusely at the rampant farce to which it has been subjected. Director Jeremy Woloski, no stranger to this sort of material, proves to be the right person for the job, herding his cast like a one-man pit crew at the Indianapolis 500 through one lap after another to the finish line. This is one of those door-opening-and-slamming-shut enterprises requiring, as all good farces do, an impeccable sense of timing, and it is certainly evident here, as John Smith attempts, with escalating panic, to prevent his family in Wimbledon from finding out about the one in Stratton. For eighteen years he has kept wife No. 1, Mary, and his daughter, Vicki, a secret from wife No. 2, Barbara, and his son, Gavin. The symmetry of his deceit comes crashing down, when, against all odds, Vicki and Gavin meet online, begin chatting, and develop a strong desire to meet each other. They regard it as a striking coincidence that both their fathers are named John Smith, drive a taxi, and are 43 years old. When Mary tells John about Vicki’s impending meeting of Gavin, he realizes that doom is in the forecast unless he can keep his two offspring apart. To this end, he employs the aid of his endlessly inventive and improvising mate, Stanley Gardner, a pleasure-seeking oaf who lives upstairs with his eccentric and not-all-there father. What ensues for the rest of the play is a crescendo of near disasters, one topping the previous one in its outrageousness. One may well question why John would put himself in such a predicament, but what fun it is to see him try to squirm his way out of it. Todd Darling is frantic in all the right ways as John, stuttering and stumbling his way back and forth from Mary to Barbara, Vicki to Gavin, like a pinball looking for a safe hole into which to fall. But if there is a scene stealer here, it is Doug Ingalls’ insanely memorable Stanley. From his impersonation of an “answering service” on John’s cell phone to his ad-libbed identities to both Barbara and Gavin, Ingalls does something very rare indeed: he arouses genuine empathy as well as unbridled laughter. It is a treat to watch him work so crisply in tandem with Darling in preserving the status quo. Kara Krantz has the showier part of the wives as Mary, and she handles it with a satisfying blend of consternation and frustration. Lisa Cohane is very good as Barbara, playing her with an air of slightly detached befuddlement. Surprisingly fine are Peter Arsenault as Gavin and Nicole Marchand as Vicki, who hold their own extremely well with the more veteran cast, including Joe Arsenault’s amusingly unruly rendering of Stanley’s father. This is a “Net” well worth getting caught in.
|