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‘Foreigner’ at Theatrical Outfit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Foreigner.” Through April 24. The verdict: Yee-hi. This here story shore is funny.
Playwright Larry Shue once described himself as a stammering, stuttering man who was afraid to order a hamburger. Working in Japan, he observed that the natives would forgive a person’s bad behavior if they knew he was a foreigner.
Shue, who died in a 1985 plane crash, combines these elements in his 1983 farce, “The Foreigner,” about a shy British traveler who pretends he doesn’t speak English when he finds himself at a fish camp in fictional Tilghman County, Georgia. A raucous comedy about the hazards of disguise, language and bigotry, “The Foreigner” is now getting a punch-drunk treatment at Theatrical Outfit.
Directed by Kate Warner, the former Outfit managing director who recently replaced Sean Daniels as artistic director of Dad’s Garage, the show is laugh-out-loud funny and a delirious workout for a group of Atlanta’s most nimble crackpot comedians —- including the irrepressibly nutty, shamefully underused Jill Jane Clements.
As Betty Meeks, Clements seems to take her cues from the creatures that inhabit the woods outside her clueless character’s rustic retreat. Betty, who tells us that she once had a pet skunk, has the twitchy, blank look of a squirrel. Heck, she’s so country she thinks that Malaysia is a “she” and that aborigines come from Ottawa.
No wonder, then, that Betty becomes fascinated with the so-called foreigner that her friend Froggy (Chris Kayser) drops off at the lodge. Suddenly a woman who’s never felt compelled to be even an armchair traveler has an exotic playmate named “Cha-oo-lee,” as Froggy calls Charlie (John Benzinger).
For reasons that become clear as the story unfolds, the Rev. David Lee (Joe Knezevich) wants to buy unsuspecting Betty’s ramshackle retreat, where he’s ensconced with his fiancee, Catherine (Wendy Melkonian), and her dumb-as-his-thumb brother, Ellard (Dan Triandiflou).
Benzinger sketches his character with a stealthy perversity that’s well-suited to Charlie’s social invisibility, and Triandiflou turns Ellard into a hilariously befuddled hero. After Froggy has a good time cooking up the impromptu plan, Charlie makes his own mischief with the mentally challenged Ellard. He’s also able to eavesdrop and undermine the dark schemes that will eventually be revealed.
Owen Musser may turn out to be the most depraved character in the lot, but Scott Warner gets amazing mileage from the redneck’s delight in insulting Charlie. Melkonian finds layers of irony in former-debutante Catherine, who is by turns bored, bitter, betrayed and smitten.
The problem with “The Foreigner” —- which relies too much on well-trod Southern stereotypes —- is that Shue backs himself into a corner that he can’t get out of. Just as the audience settles into the rhythm of giddy one-liners, the action makes a sudden creepy turn that confuses the tone.
Fortunately, this ensemble has the technical finesse to transform the thin material into a door-slamming, scenery-chomping exercise in wretched excess and endless buffoonery. If you are hungry for shameless belly laughs, this show will go down like “Greater Tuna” casserole. Cheap but tasty.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Through April 24. $16.20-$43.20. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie St., Atlanta. 404-577-5257, www.theatricaloutfit.org.
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By liz allen
April 8, 2005 11:54 AM | Link to this
Did anyone at the Fox watching the Russian Nat’l Ballet Tuesday evening think the final curtain came down almost on the cast?