STAGE REVIEW : Implausible ‘Foreigner’ Is an Occasionally Funny Play

Some feisty direction and a hard-working cast help to make the best of the impossibly silly “The Foreigner” at Golden West College.

Larry Shue’s overstuffed comedy has won quite a bit of praise over the years; it’s even been called a classic of stylized, physical humor. Talk about overstatement. “The Foreigner” is a contrivance, a loose construct of implausible events that, simply because of their very strangeness, is occasionally funny.

The play expects the audience to go with the flow, even when the current is choppy. First off, we have to accept that incredibly shy Charlie (David Cagley), a Brit, would find himself in a Georgia backwater while his wife lies near death in a hospital back home. He was brought there by Froggy (Josh Fischel), an Army demolitions expert on assignment to blow up a nearby mountain.

Huh?

Anyway, Froggy suggests that Charlie pretend he can’t speak English so he won’t have to interact with the people at the lodge where they’re staying. This thrills lodge owner Betty (Jaye Wilson), a portly woman who thinks that knowing a foreigner will put octane in her life. Playing his role perfectly, Charlie hears things he isn’t supposed to, such as the plan of the Rev. David Lee (C. Claud Morse) to bilk the lovable half-wit Owen (Gino England) out of his inheritance. Then the Ku Klux Klan makes an entrance.

Come again?

Well, at GWC, director Steven Paul Schwartz makes the most out of all this nonsense by keeping the pace accelerated; he really doesn’t give us any time to dwell on the plot holes or cliched characterizations. Such handling lets “The Foreigner” work at face value. If you like slapstick in your comedy and don’t mind the improbabilities, this may be the ticket.

Schwartz’s actors help him keep up the tempo. Cagley is appropriately understated, using quietly neurotic tics and nervous inflections to show Charlie’s hopeless insecurity.

As the bumptious Catherine, dim Owen’s sister who is engaged to the sleazy preacher, Wendy Pitts is very capable. So is England, who lets Owen blossom as he develops a healthy bond with Charlie. His Chaplinesque miming scene with Cagley during breakfast has the right vaudevillian energy.

‘THE FOREIGNER’

A Golden West College production of Larry Shue’s comedy. Directed by Steven Paul Schwartz. With Josh Fischel, David Cagley, Jaye Wilson, C. Claud Morse, Wendy Pitts, Gino England, Mike Donegan, Deanne Hinesley and John Nook. Set by Steven Wolff Craig. Lighting by Charles P. Davis. Costumes by Robin Whitney. Plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the campus’ Patio Theatre, Gothard Street and Centre Drive, Huntington Beach. Tickets: $6 and $7. (714) 895-8378.