THEATER

The Pearl Theater
The Ding Dong

“HILARIOUS!”

-The New York Times

DRAMA LEAGUE NOMINATION

Kelley Curran, The Dingdong

”THE STAGE SIZZLES TO LIFE EVERY TIME CURRAN TURNS UP!”

-Time Out New York

“FARCE REQUIRES DEXTEROUS, PRECISE PERFORMANCES, AND THIS CAST IS UP TO THE CHALLENGE; BRAD HEBERLEE IS ESPECIALLY EXCELLENT IN HIS MULTIPLE ROLES. YOU WON’T REGRET YOUR EVENING IN THE HOTEL ULTIMUS—BUT KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR SPOUSE, AND YOUR HAT.”

-The New Yorker

Vatelin is a faithful husband—mostly. Lucy is a faithful wife—kind of. And their “fidelity” is about to be put to the test when a series of importunate suitors and femme fatales invade their little world. Following the misadventures of one madcap night in a Paris hotel, Feydeau’s farce dances us into a world where opening the wrong door in the dark of night leads to mayhem, laughter, and, maybe, a few home truths about the secrets to a happy marriage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/theater/review-the-dingdong-offers-frothy-lingerieand-frisky-behavior.html?_r=0

Review: ‘The Dingdong’ Offers Frothy Lingerie and Frisky Behavior

A slammed door is as essential to a French sex farce as fizz to Champagne, cream to a chocolate éclair, rose to a Chanel perfume. But in the opening moments of Mark Shanahan’s occasionally hilarious and mostly harmless “The Dingdong,” presented by the Pearl Theater Company, poor Lucy Vatelin (Rachel Botchan) just can’t get her door closed. Much as she prods and pulls, there’s a lecher in the way.

The rakish Dr. Potegnac (Bradford Cover) has followed the demure Lucy home and assailed her with various lewd proposals. But Lucy isn’t listening. She prides herself on her fidelity to her husband, Vatelin (Chris Mixon), and believes that he holds her in the same regard. If he were ever untrue, however, “I’d take a lover in a heartbeat,” she tells Potegnac.

Potegnac then invites her to catch Vatelin in several compromising positions at a nearby hotel that night. A feisty Italian, a battling Hungarian, a brazen American, a virginal bellhop and many other characters end up traipsing through that suite.

Mr. Shanahan, a longtime actor, has adapted the play from Georges Feydeau’s 1896 farce, “Le Dindon.” He has clearly taken some liberties (or is there an exact French cognate for “horndog”?) and forwarded the action 40 years, yet retained the essential plot — of a wife who swears she’ll pay her husband in kind if she finds he’s a cheat. (The French title, which literally refers to a young turkey, is often translated as “Sauce for the Goose.”)

Five actors play 13 roles. Mr. Cover and Kelley Curran, who enacts four characters with four different accents, manage the task with the most variety and verve, though Brad Heberlee works wonders with an absurd fake mustache. Much of the design, which includes costumes by Amy Clark and a fairly flexible set by Sandra Goldmark, is frisky.

For the farce to work ideally, you would have to feel real concern for the Vatelins and real alarm over the threats to their marriage. But under Hal Brooks’s direction, there’s little emotional center, and the precision of the pacing comes and goes. With all the one-liners and quick changes and frothy lingerie and funny accents, however, you might not notice.

As in many a classic farce, semi-scandalous encounters and near trysts can’t shatter the bourgeois marriage at the play’s core; they even strengthen it. However lascivious in its come-ons and varied in its penis jokes, “The Dingdong” is ultimately conservative in its conclusions: a tease of a play.