Review: It’s a tame ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ at South Coast Repertory

Commedia dell’arte meets British farce: In “One Man, Two Guvnors,” Richard Bean gives Carlo Goldoni’s 18th century comedy “The Servant of Two Masters” the Benny Hill treatment.

When Britain’s National Theatre produced the play with the baby-faced comic genius James Corden, who went on to win a Tony when the show transferred to Broadway before becoming the host of CBS’ “The Late Late Show,” the result was one of the most riotous evenings I’ve spent in the theater.

The laughter is much more subdued in David Ivers’ tame production at South Coast Repertory. There is no danger of passing out from lack of oxygen, as I feared I might when I saw the play in London and New York.

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Those who never met a pratfall they didn’t like, who can’t help guffawing when a door smashes a character in the noggin and who love nothing more than the hide-and-seek of mistaken identity will find plenty of amusement here. But for me the biggest laughs came during Danny Scheie’s over-the-top reminder, spoken in the character of the snooty head waiter he plays, for audience members to turn off their cellphones.

Dan Donohue takes on the role of Francis Henshall, the troublemaking skiffle musician who finds himself employed by two demanding bosses in 1960s Brighton. Donohue lacks the girth that Corden used to terrific advantage when wrestling with a trunk that was too heavy to lift or driven mad by insatiable hunger.

There’s no requirement that Francis be played by an actor of Falstaffian proportions. But in a play in which the title character’s raging appetite drives the first half of the play, a big gut is an unmistakable asset.

Francis is an update of commedia’s Arlecchino role, the puckish servant forever risking the ire of his master with his wily schemes to satisfy one or another of his lusty desires. (The play’s second half is governed by Francis’ randier urges.) Donohue possesses a rubber-band flexibility for physical comedy, but he’s a bit too low energy in his characterization to motor Bean’s comedy all the way through.

He’s actually freer in the more spontaneous interaction that takes place with the audience. Theatergoers, in keeping with the old Italian comic tradition, are incorporated from time to time into the act. This adds some much needed danger to the high jinks here.

The world of “One Man, Two Guvnors,” mixing the criminally seedy with the pompously posh, is meant to be lurid and ludicrous, but emphasizing the exaggeration can dull the joke. Those who play it straighter, such as Robert Sicular, playing the gangster father of the not especially innocent inamorata Pauline (Sarah Moser), fare better.

At least Brad Culver, who portrays the preening thespian Alan, the man Pauline hopes to marry, overdoes things to enjoyable comic effect. And Helen Sadler (in male drag) and William Connell (affecting an upper-class cluelessness) as Francis’ bosses, neither of whom suspects he has another “Guvnor,” are steady enough to keep confusion from becoming chaos.

But the production, which is visually entrancing, thanks to Hugh Landwehr’s sketch of a seaside set and Meg Neville’s tacky vintage costumes, was most enjoyable when the band the Craze was performing the songs Grant Olding wrote for the show. The music, more than the acting, revved the pulse of this renovated antique farce.

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‘One Man, Two Guvnors’

Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 11

Tickets: $22-$74

Info: www.scr.org or (714) 708-5555

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes

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