By
Laurel Graeber
Published:
February 18, 2000
It
wasn't ''Peter Pan.'' It was ''What Happened to Jones?''
Written by George Broadhurst (the dramatist for
whom the Broadhurst Theater is named), the play is being produced in a
revised version by the Metropolitan Playhouse. According to the program
notes, David Zarko, the director, has given the play new dialogue but
retained the plot, which has as many twists and turns as a child's
Slinky. Hoping the production will have similar appeal for today's
young theatergoers, the playhouse is offering family matinees on
Sundays as well as old-fashioned prices for children.
The
play is old-fashioned, too. It concerns the Goodlys, whose normally
conservative patriarch, Ebenezer, attends a boxing match with his
daughter's beau. When the match is raided, a con man named Jones
escapes by following the men through the Goodlys' living room window.
Before
long Jones is impersonating the family's long-awaited guest, Antony
Goodly. Antony is Ebenezer's brother but hasn't been glimpsed in 27
years, since he went to Australia to become an Anglican bishop.
Children
younger than 10 will have as much trouble keeping everything straight
as Jones does. (Bishop Goodly and an escaped madman -- with multiple
personality disorder, no less -- eventually show up, too.)
But
the production offers lots of physical comedy, and youngsters with
stamina (it's almost two and a half hours, with two intermissions) will
be amused by Jones's legal and romantic victories. Like that other
through-the-window visitor, he won't grow up -- and doesn't have to.
Reviewed
by Karl Levett
George
Broadhurst, author of "What Happened to Jones" is one of the few
American playwrights whose names adorn Broadway theatres.
He was remarkably successful in his time, yet is practically unknown
today. So, thanks are due to the Metropolitan Playhouse, whose
commendable purpose is to resurrect and revitalize American plays
before 1920, for introducing us to George. David Zarko, who also
directed, has adapted this 1897 three-act farce to demonstrate its
original fizz while sharpening its wit with some latter-day references.
The result is an endearing and very serviceable farce, one that would
be a boon to amateur groups seeking such fare, and far superior to many
over-performed comedies currently out there. Zarko has directed his
large cast with gusto (perhaps too much gusto for this intimate space),
but at least the pace-so essential in farce-never flags.
The
household of Ebenezer Goodly (David L. Carson) and his wife, Mathilda
(Karen Case Cook), is awaiting the arrival of Ebenezer's brother, and
Anthony (Ed Chemaly), the Bishop of Ballarat in Australia. Ebenezer's
prospective son-in-law, Richard (Duane Noch) convinces Ebenezer to
attend a boxing match. When the match is raided, Ebenezer and Richard flee,
followed into the house by Jones (Mark Hirschfield), a traveling Bible
salesman and general con man. Jones assumes the identity of the Bishop,
playing havoc in a household that includes three young women
and a romantic aunt. Broadhurst rings all the familiar farcical bells,
but the complications (including some belly laughs) are inventive to
the final curtain.
Hirschfield
makes an affable, fast-talking Jones, best in his scenes with the
romantic, wild-eyed Alvina, played with genuine farcical abandon by
Page Clements whose every entrance moves the comedy up a notch. Solid
performances come from Carson, Cook, and Noch on Charles Townsend
Wittreich Jr.'s painterly set plus some witty costumes by Fritz
Masten-Mathilda's tassled bustle is, indeed, the final word.
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