Habeas Corpus

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

What an intriguing title. And habeas corpus has what to do with this play? Looking at the definition, just about everything. The literal meaning behind habeas corpus is “you may have the body.” In murder cases this is relatively essential. In the case of Alan Bennett’s play, it appears to mean, “you may take the body.” For the characters it revolves more around how to acquire the body they lust after. Once they have the body, what do they do with it?

Kristina Denise Pitt as Felicity and Ed Baierlein as Wicksteed in Germinal Stage West’s Habeas Corpus.

In 1960, Alan Bennett turned the theatrical world upside down when he co-wrote Beyond the Fringe, performing it with three others who all became household names in England: Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook. Bennett remains one of England’s outstanding perceptive playwrights. There is very little he won’t pokes holes or pokes fun at.

In Habeas Corpus he takes his pen to sexual mores, traditional marriage, and the medical profession. Although his pen is sword-sharp, Bennett holds such mastery of the English language; he doesn’t need to employ foul language, or jokes of the stupidity nature to grab anyone’s attention. He weds the funny and sad with spotlight probing and sensitive warmth.

Combine Bennett’s mastery with the Germinal Stage West expertise, and the result is one of the funniest productions of all time. I had to force myself to keep from laughing out loud all the time. Seeing the outrageous characters is one thing, but hearing their consistent exaggeration and bleeding out of words is enough to send the audience to the floor in double up laugh harmony.

A farce of the highest degree, Habeas Corpus zeroes in on the Wicksteed family. Ed Baierlein lets the pompous out to play with the lust for anything in skirts, while he attempts to maintain a reserved dignity as Dr. Wicksteed. That’s doc-TOR according to his definition. Every scene is a hilarious standout, but when he demonstrates to the come-hither Felicity the difference between a doc-TOR touching a woman, and a man, it should become a classic off the wall comic tribute. Kristina Denise Pitt oozes with Felicity’s heightened sexuality.

Lori Hansen plays the doc-TOR’s wife, Muriel with snobbish prudence always with an eye toward making her own escapes. As Felicity carries a tongue hanging body to die for, Connie, the doc-TOR’s sister, will do anything for big breasts, and does. Jennifer Ann Forsyth stands behind this naïve pathetic character with forceful amusing talent. Jim Miller, with his throat clutched by a white color, a saintly smirk on his face, a wandering gleam in his eye, and a lustful tongue parading as a man of the cloth on his God-mobile under the name of Throbbing. His name isn’t the only thing throbbing.

Just about the time, one thinks nothing more could send the giggles gasping for air, out comes Purdue, with a rope around his neck, threatening to hang himself because he can’t get the good doc-TOR’s immediate attention. Seeped in deadpan humor, Paul Barner is hysterical as the would-be suicide victim. Of course, he doesn’t really want to hang himself. He just wants attention, which is difficult to do with Felicity bouncing from one man to another, and Connie going from broom stick flat to stand back two feet or you’ll pop the balloons. Then there is Lady Rumpers who spends most of her time announcing she doesn’t want to be touched given blood, sweat, and tears by Sallie Diamond. Tad Baierlein plays the lackadaisical; ambition has past him by, Dennis, the doc-TOR and Muriel’s son.

With the skirting in and out of doors, the double entendres and mistaken identities, this cast, which also includes the artistic talents of Linda A. Barner who gives the Narrator a new twist as Mrs. Swabb, Michael A. Parker who takes Sir Percy Shorter for a roller coaster ride with short jokes, generally getting shorted out. Chuck Wigginton as Mr. Shanks spends a good deal of his time without his pants on.

This production of Habeas Corpus should wear a crown on its head for King of Comedy. To miss Habeas Corpus would simply be a habeas corpus crime against fun, frolic and laughter.