THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 2, 1995 TAG: 9502280089
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater review
SOURCE: BY MONTAGUE GAMMON III, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
``Dying is easy. Comedy is hard!'' an old entertainer supposedly said as he breathed his last.
Nobody dies, either in the sense of losing lives or having jokes fall totally flat, in the Virginia Wesleyan production of ``A Fitting Confusion.'' The young cast acquits itself adequately in one of the most difficult forms of comedy, a farce.
These performers show potential and make their way through the pitfalls of Georges Feydeau's high-spirited script with enough verve to keep the show alive.
The plot is typical of the genre called French farce. The place is Paris; the time, a morning in 1900.
One Dr. Moulineaux is suspected of cheating on his new wife, Yvonne.
Though innocent of adultery, Moulineaux had been trying to engineer an affair with a patient. That vacuous young woman, Suzanne, had not shown up for their planned 2 a.m. meeting.
The young doctor is soon faced with more than an angry and disappointed wife. His mother-in-law, the sharp-tongued, domineering Madame Aigreville comes to visit.
As characters appear, confusion multiplies. Monsieur Bassinet, recent heir to a nearby apartment house, rents what was once a dressmaker's place to the doctor for his assignation, and rents the same flat to the mother-in-law, who wishes to live near her daughter.
Ian Dewberry invests plenty of energy in his role of Molineaux, and Cynthia Badger and Tammy S. Dewberry as Yvonne and Suzanne are innocent and naive. Jim Keitel finds the basis of a funny character as Suzanne's husband, as does Steven Filer Munley in Bassinet.
Jeggan Grey-Johnson gets laughs as Molineaux's less-than-clever servant. In smaller roles, Nicole O'Bleanis, Merideth Plimley and Joan Vippolis show their competence.
The performance that stood out on opening night was that of Amy Insley, who bought a spark to her part as the mother-in-law. Experience and training could make her a comedienne of the first water.
The show was directed by Bentley Anderson, who also designed a pair of striking sets, and even choreographed the scene changes to have comic content. by CNB