MainStage Irving - Las Colinas presents The Underpants
The Underpants by Steve Martin
Adapted from Carl Sternheim
Directed by B.J. Cleveland
Scenic Designer/Set Dresser/Master Carpenter
Wendy Searcy-Woode
Lighting Designer
Mia Lindermann
Costume Designer
Michael A. Robinson/Dallas Costume Shoppe
Sound Design/A1 Sound Op
Michael Cannon
Stage Manager
Elissa Deschler
My thoughts on The Underpants or…. you bet your bloomers it’s funny.
B. J. Cleveland directing a fast-paced farce by Steve Martin filled with sexual innuendo and double entendres with a cast that serves that innuendo and those double entendres like Wimbledon champs? What could possibly go wrong? Absolutely nothing! Just hold on to your drawers and brace yourself for a bawdy evening of inspired, over the top, hilarious nonsense.
It’s Germany circa 1910. The middle-class home of Louise and Theo Maske is thrown into an uproar when Louise’s underpants accidentally fall down during a the king’s parade. Theo is sure the scandal will ruin them, but it actually benefits them as two men, an Italian poet and a Jewish hypochondriac, who witnessed the incident and are now infatuated with Louise, show up to rent a room from the Maskes. There’s also Gertrude, the lusty neighbor of the Maskes, who wants to help Louise broaden her horizons, so to speak. All sorts of entanglements ensue and there’s even an elderly gentlemen admirer who arrives needing a room in Act II and a royal surprise to top off the evening.
Cleveland, a master of comedy himself, has a dream cast who toss off one liners with nary a smile or snicker. It’s a bit like Ibsen meets Benny Hill. How Ashley Hawkins keeps her composure as the wide eyed, innocent Louise while the rest of the cast spout one naughty line after another is remarkable. She’s a straight-laced straight woman in a room filled with zanies. Hawkins is a posture perfect Louise, upright and uptight, but not oblivious to temptation.
And that temptation is aided and abetted by Brandy Raper in the plum role of the delightfully lewd neighbor Gertrude. Raper makes Gertrude a cross between Blanche Devereaux and Belle Watling, sashaying around the stage giving Louise advice on all matters sexual. Raper plays this role to the hilt and can she ever wield a mean sausage! A comic gem of a performance.
Louise also has some quite comical men in her life. Brian Davis is her husband Theo. He’s a prig and most likely more attracted to money than to his wife, but Davis’s animated delivery makes him almost likeable. Michael Speck is Frank Versati , the Italian poet who is smitten with Louise. Speck, looking like a silent film star, has quite the way with words and his Versati is both funny and charming. Russell Sims as the hypochondriac Cohen is a marvelous physical comedian and is great fun to watch trying to turn Louise’s attention from Versati to himself. Michael Corolla is the elderly man of science Klinglehoff, yet another man attracted to Louise and wanting to rent a room. Corolla and Hawkins provide some big laughs in a madcap scene late in the play. Even the king, played by Scott Crew, feels the lure of Louise and makes a cameo appearance.
All the characters, and most especially the women, are beautifully dressed in period costumes by Michael A. Robinson and Wendy Searcy-Woode provides a wonderfully detailed, colorful set.
Director Cleveland keeps this farce moving so quickly and the laughs coming so frequently that The Underpants actually seems shorter than its 90 minutes. It’s racy and risqué hilarity and the perfect entertainment for a summer evening.
