STAGE WEST: "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" at North Coast Repertory Theatre

Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper (left) and Andrew Polec in "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder." Photo by Aaron Rumley

             It was fitting that Robert L. Freedman, who wrote the book and lyrics for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” was in the audience on opening night of North Coast Repertory Theatre’s production of this Tony Award-winning (in 2014) show. He, along with Steven Lutvak who wrote lyrics and the operetta score for “Guide,” are responsible for having given the world a musical comedy classic.
             “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” is hella witty, benignly subversive and utterly enjoyable, a master-craft marriage of catchy tune and biting lyric.
            Perfect example: “I Don’t Understand the Poor,” sung with self-satisfied disdain by Lord Adalbert D’Ysquith, he of the aristocratic family destined to be knocked off one by one over the course of two and a half hours. Written as if by the GOP platform committee or a Trump lackey for some red-capped rally, it goes this way:
            “I don’t understand the poor, the lives they lead, of want and need
            I should think it would be a bore
            It seems to be nothing but stubbornness
            Oh, what’s all the suffering for?
            To be so debased is in terrible taste
            I don’t understand the poor.”
            If that doesn’t garner sympathy for outsider Monty Navarro’s plot to kill off the D’Ysquith family and ascend to the Highhurst lordship, nothing does. Even if he’s doing it less to right social wrongs and more to avenge his mother, a rightful member of the D’Ysquiths who was disowned, and to win the heart of the status-seeking beauty Sibella.
            I first saw “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love in Murder” 12 years ago in its Old Globe premiere, but other than remembering how phenomenal Jefferson Mays was portraying everyone in the doomed D’Ysquith clan, most of it had slipped into the fog of the hundreds of shows I’ve seen since.
            The winning North Coast Rep production reminded me of just how delicious an affair “Guide” is.
            Noelle Marion directs a talented cast, one exquisitely costumed for turn-of-the-20th-century London aristocracy by Elisa Benzoni. As with the memorable 1949 film “Kind Hearts and Coronets” based on the Roy Horniman novel “Israel Rank,” Freedman and Lutvak’s black comedy musical focuses on the tale’s converging forces: likable but murder-minded Monty (Andrew Polec) and the eight variously cartoonish members of the D’Ysquith family (all of them, male and female, played by Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper). The latter is an actor’s dream undertaking: Mays, currently onstage at the Old Globe in the farce “Noises Off,” defined the D’Ysquiths in Hartford, at the Globe and on Broadway. That makes for mighty big Edwardian shoes for Mongiardo-Cooper to fill. He certainly meets the challenge here in all its bluster and physicality, though no one is Mays.
            Polec is nimble and high-energy and tailor-made for Monty, he who is ingenious and conscience-less, and dashing enough to attract both material-girl Sibella (Lauren Weinberg, who shone so brightly in NC Rep’s “Camelot” last year) and the sweet Miss Phoebe D’Ysquith (Katy Tang, like Weinberg a beautifully rangy vocalist).
            Unseen but they who should not be unsung are the four musicians who accompany the singing cast: musical director Daniel Lincoln, Jennifer Williams, Amy Kalal and Katrina Earl.
            Director Marion employs effectively an accompanying acting ensemble (Michael Cavinder, Andrew Hey, Shinah Hey, Jean Kauffman) that fills multiple roles and executes stage antics that heighten the proceedings. Theatrical devices such as when Asquith D’Ysquith and a Florodora girl go ice skating – only to fall into a hole in the ice, courtesy of Monty – and Monty’s frantically separating rivals Sibella and Phoebe on either side of a door are part of the madcap delights here.
            Comical highlights in song abound, like Monty and Henry D’Ysquith propounding that things are “Better With a Man,” Phoebe’s wooing “Inside Out” and the stagy “Barrel of a Gun,” which precipitates the demise of Lord Adalbert.
            Everyone onstage in Solana Beach looks to be having the time of their lives (or deaths), and who can blame them with the material they’ve got? At the same time, this dark comedy operetta has to be rigorous work. But what work!
            I’ve got a weakness for stage musicals that minimize the use of traditional ballads – like “Spamalot” and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.” Also stage musicals that can revel in silliness. They’ve earned their exalted positions in Broadway lore every bit as much as the Rodgerses and Hammersteins and Sondheims and Kanders and Ebbs have.
            “Guide” is North Coast Rep’s closing show of its 43rd season. It’s a rousing way to wind it up.
            “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” runs through Aug. 17 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.