One Man, Two Guvnors a juicy filet of farce
When going to see One Man, Two Guvnors at The Hilberry Theatre, be warned. Pay attention.
The comedy, Richard Bean’s adaptation of an 18th century Italian farce by Carlo Goldoni and directed by Lenny Banovez, is farce indeed, with fittingly convoluted plot lines: one hapless, hungry libidinous man, Francis, simultaneously employed by two employers, a woman posing as her own dead twin brother, gangsters, tarts, a pratfall-happy waiter with a twitchy pacemaker strapped to the outside of his shirt. It’s mayhem.
Kyle Mitchell Johnson as Francis in One Man Two Guvnors
The setting is Brighton, England in 1963, a time when the British resort town was going to seed, yet the country was at the dawn of the British rock music revolution, and everyone is feeling a bit decadent with timely consumption of gin and good claret taking precedence over most everything else.
The ringmaster of this three-ring circus is Kyle Mitchell Johnson as Francis Henshall, the hand-to-mouth hanger-on always in search of a way to make a few bob for his next meal or to pay a landlady. He is all knowing and a dolt all at once, which, of course makes him sweetly hilarious. Mr. Johnson’s timing with the challenging material is spot on, with half the comedy coming from his face, and the other half from his nervous, anxious delivery of the writing.
The plot is barely relevant to the frenetic action and clippy dialogue. Francis is the Man-Friday to Roscoe Crabbe who is dead and replaced by his twin sister Rachel (Tiffany Michelle Thompson). Roscoe is supposed to be engaged to the dim Twiggy-like Pauline Clench (Mary Sansone) who is ga-ga over ham-fisted actor Alan Dangle (Nick Stockwell). Roscoe was killed by Rachel’s beau, Stanley Stubbers (Michael Manocchio). Add to this shepherd’s pie a couple of waiters, a lawyer and no-nonsense Anglo-African pub owner.
The whole show is treacherous for the actors to keep both timing and blocking cracking along. It is like a game of Kerplunk where one pulls sticks out of a cylinder of marbles trying to keep all the marbles from falling to the bottom. It has a feel of being part Shakespearean comedy and Mozart comedic opera, with a touch of Monte Python all buzzed up in a food processor.
There are frequent asides to the audience, breaking the fourth wall and some members of the audience are pulled up on stage for a few moments of participation. Be ready if you are sitting near the stage.
The dialogue skips along like a Fred Astaire dance number, written to elicit a cadence of laughter, which succeeds most of the time. “It’s 1963,” says Paula to her father, “and you can’t make me marry a dead homosexual.” Humor is achieved at times by simple well-turned alliteration, reminiscent of Oscar Wilde: “He was diagnosed with diarrhea but died of diabetes in Dagenham.”
Costumes are extremely well done, from Francis’ thrift-store clashing ensemble to the tarty girls’ short period dresses and hair, to the men’s English finery. The Hilberry is a terrific expansive stage, and the scene of the street corner outside the pub is wonderfully conveyed.
All the actors sport British accents and get them done pretty well by my ear, though who knows if a barrister from Birmingham visiting Bloomfield Hills right now would agree. The Hilberry last Spring put on a splendid production of The 39 Steps, a British comedy based on the Alfred Hitchcock film, and mainstay of London’s West End, that was worthy of Off Broadway and London boards. One Man follows that with a production that would impress on any stage in the world.