STAGE WEST
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page

Theater reviews

Stage West

"The Underpants" at the Old Globe Theatre

8/7/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Regina De Vera (left) and Joanna Glushak in "The Underpants."                                       Photo by Jim Cox
            The Underpants of Steve Martin’s 2002 adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s farce Die Hose belong to Louise Maske, a German housewife in the early 20th century who inadvertently drops her unmentionables in public with the result of turning on a couple of prospective renters of the room she and her husband Theo are letting. One is a dashing poet, Versati, who can’t get out of the way of his own swooning verbiage; the other is Cohen, a rank hypochondriac. In the noisy, 90-minute romp inside the Old Globe’s intimate White Theatre, Versati (Luis Vega) and Cohen (Michael Bradley Cohen) make their plays for Louise (Regina De Vera) while the unsuspecting Theo (Eddie Kaye Thomas) goes about his chauvinistic business.
            I didn’t find The Underpants all that funny the first time I saw it, seven years ago at the North Coast Rep in Solana Beach, nor do I find it that funny today. Its shouting and pratfalling come off like a more risqué sketch from “The Carol Burnett Show,” with everyone acting out in glorious costume and full throat. Cohen (as Cohen) does it best of anyone in the cast, which also includes Joanna Glushak as the flushed and horny neighbor Gertrude, and Jeff Blumenkrantz and Kris Zarif in more minor roles. Tossing the Maskes’ house cats (and kicking one) is played for laughs, as is the repeated, uncomfortable bit of renter Cohen pretending not to be Jewish. The Martin strategy seems to be if something works once, why not work it again? And again?
            Say this for the Old Globe production directed by Walter Bobbie: It employs some canny stage effects. The cats, they who eventually go flying, are animated with lifelike movements such as flopping tails. Recorded snippets of music, whether to evoke Wagner or to set the mood for a sexy seduction, accompany the action. An animatronic bird in a cage (an unsubtle metaphor for Louise perhaps?) suspended from above does everything but shed feathers.
            This play has deep connections to the Old Globe. Die Hose was introduced to Martin by now-Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, who also directed the world premiere of The Underpants in New York 17 years ago. Its run (through Sept. 8) in Balboa Park this summer is likely to be a busy and well-attended one.
 (Review originally published in San Diego CityBeat on 8/7/19.)
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    David L. Coddon is a Southern California theater critic.

    Archives

    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    August 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    December 2014
    January 2014
    January 2013
    January 2012
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Theatre Review

David Coddon

About 
David Coddon Fiction
Theatre Reviews

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page