Run For Your Wife

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Spotlight Theatre’s production of Ray Cooney’s Run For Your Wife opened Saturday night turning people away at the door. Sold out for the opening weekend and nearly sold out for Friday’s production is nothing to sneeze at for a small community theatre climbing into the ranks to compete with the big boys.

Bonnie Greene, Bernie Cardell and Haley Johnson in a scene from Spotlight’s production of Run For Your Wife.

Following opening night’s show, I stated it was the funniest play I have seen in several years. That wasn’t exactly a true statement. What is true is Spotlight’s production of Run for Your Wife is the funniest ha-ha production of a play I have ever seen in my entire life. That is a huge mouthful since I have seen dozens of spectacular extraordinary hilarious comedic farces that have knocked me out. This one, however, climbs over the shoulders of masters and pros to sit with them at the top.

Under the direction of Pat Payne, the amazing eight person cast turns perpetual motion into an art form standing firm on treating the preposterous characters in an absurd premise as seriously as a bomb threat invasion.

A couple of the actors who previously have been little more than bodies on stage discovered comedic wings in this production taking them to soar with the eagles. Granted I have never heard an eagle laugh, but not hearing it doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. I had a monkey once who laughed, a parakeet who laughed, and several cats and dogs who laughed.

A master at comedic farce, Bernie Cardell turns inside out to become John Smith, a taxi driver living in England. A non-descript ordinary man, he is, living a well structured organized uneventful life.

Organized John has to be since he lives with his wife Mary (Bonnie Greene) in Wimbledon, and lives with Barbara (Haley Johnson) his wife in Streatham. The two homes are exactly four and a half minutes apart. With his taxi driver shifts and his organizational skills, he keeps his appointment book written in code.

Four months after marrying Mary, who he dearly loves, he just happened to meet Barbara discovering a great deal of commonality, and fell in love. In his mind the only logical thing to do was to marry her too.

All goes smoothly in a routine manner until one night an accident sends him to the hospital. The hospital has one address for John Smith. In his fuzzy haziness from being hit over the head by a little old lady with her purse, he happens to give the detective following up on the case a different address. Sargent Troughton wonderfully played with a cynical quizzical straight face by John Greene sees to it John gets home to Mary in Wimbledon. The initial problem, however, it is 9:30 in the morning, and he was suppose to be at Barbara’s by 7:30 for a CDWB, the code in his appointment book translated means Cuddly Day With Barbara.

Mary and Barbara have been on the phone simultaneously to their respective police departments. John didn’t make it home to Mary the night before and is now an hour and a half late to meet Barbara.

Simple questions deserving straightforward simple answers start with little white lies by John to cover his tracks. Out of desperation to keep Mary and Barbara in the dark, the little white lies turn into twisted knotted complex deceptive knots that would baffle the most stringent master of knot tying.

Cardell treats John’s hilarious toppling over himself as seriously as though he were playing Hamlet, except that every twisted expression, every physical move, every timed word, is underscored with downright honest funny.

At one point Cardell managed to break up Bonnie Greene for a split second when Mary angrily confronted the running in circles desperate John who has more creative explanations than rabbits have bunnies in a lifetime. Mary doesn’t break up, but Greene face to face with this perpetual motioned form of hilarity does as he digs his way out of a hole that nearly reaches China.

On a bare bones budget, Mari Geasair designed a set that fits comfortably serving as both the Wimbledon and Streatham homes.

Displaying different personalities, Johnson and B. Greene work hand in glove as Barbara and Mary living in different houses occupying the same space and are simply delicious in their juxtapositions, confusions, and desperations. Especially when Mary thinks Barbara is a cleaning lady and Barbara thinks Mary is a donation-seeking nun. Legitimately, Barbara inquires why Mary doesn’t have a habit, which she does, just not exactly what Barbara has in mind.

John and Mary’s upstairs neighbor, Stanley Gardner lives a casual vagabond, sort of, one of these days he’ll get a job, one of these days he’ll settle down. At the moment, it is far more idealistic for him to just be, enjoy life, finding solace and comfort in John and Mary’s presence. Clint Heyn plays Stanley soft as a fiddle on a spring day. Early in John’s turned upside down world, John confesses his double life to Stanley who immediately gets caught up in the hush hush ploy between Mary and Barbara. Because of the casual loose as a goose demeanor provided by Heyn, Stanley finds himself clamoring to keep up with John’s fabricated stories pretending to be a farmer selling cucumbers or potatoes whatever John throws at him or having trouble with a cow, to struggling to adapt to being in a gay relationship with John to explain why John would have two flats hoping to keep Troughton somewhat happy.

Heyn gives a solid hysterical performance climbing all over himself for Stanley to keep up with John’s zany explanations spiraling more and more out of control.

John and Barbara’s upstairs neighbor, Bobby Franklin, breathes running-at-the-mouth loose wrist designer from Charles Hettinger. Bobby has a habit of showing up at the most inopportune moments. Having just moved in upstairs with his partner, he first appears to introduce himself and borrow some milk. In the process of painting the bathroom red, a full can of paint is overturned. Bobby returns covered in red paint concerned the paint might drip through the ceiling. Brimming with gay bubbly personality Hettinger drives up Bobby’s glad-handed-always-in-a-crisis-naivetŽ to a freestanding art form.

As Troughton represents the Wimbledon police force, so Sargent Porterhouse represents the Streatham police force following up on the same strange John Smith’s battery case. As Troughton manages to maintain his detective style demeanor throughout the mayhem, Porterhouse succumbs to the manic out of control behavior appearing in an apron serving tea. The meeting of the two detectives is worth the price of tea in China. Dan Connell brings Porterhouse to delectable aliveness with very funny serendipitous moves and expressions. Something about this play enables Connell to pull the plug allowing quirky unleashed funny to roll around him like a laughing bouncing ball. He’d be a scene-stealer if he weren’t in competition with 8 other comedic artists.

Dyarl Alexander fits snugly into the cast of zany characters as an eager paparazzi reporter. A great story for the local paper: Taxi Driver Saves Little Old Lady From Mugging. Frantic John will do anything to keep the photo out of the paper including eating it if he has to. What if Barbara sees a photo of him with Mary living in Wimbledon? Alexander ensures the Reporter diligently plays the get-in-your-face-game. A small role perhaps, but pivotal to the high stakes shenanigans.

A fast-paced door slamming, hiding evidence, coving piles of deceit upon piles of deceit playing their characters straight as an arrow as if their lives depended up it, Run for Your Wife is a non-stop hilarious grab at the ribs on an incredibly high professional level of farcical comedic afternoon delight that simply started with a little old lady banging John over the head with address confusion. Cardell’s John turns unbelievable circumstances into a Ferris wheel that has stripped its gears wanting to be a skyrocketing roller coaster.

An absolute Must See because of the catapulting production, with a cast of magnificent artists flowing full-speed ahead under suburb direction for an opportunity to take the funny bone out for a long distance run.

Call for reservations now or run the risk of being turned away at the door.