THEATER REVIEW : Bigamy Comedy Is Double the Fun

John Smith is a bigamist. He’s got one wife, Mary, in Wimbledon and another wife, Barbara, in Streatham. It’s precisely a 4 1/2-minute ride between John’s two lovers, and he and his taxi cab keep a tight schedule.

One day, John is hospitalized after rescuing an old lady from a couple of young thugs. Not only is his schedule thrown off by several critical hours, but, somehow or other, the hospital forms are filled out with both addresses. The press is hounding him because he’s a local hero, the police think he’s a missing person, and he’s still feeling a little dizzy from that blow to his head. Poor John is, as they say, in a bit of a pickle.

With this exposition, “Run for Your Wife” at Saddleback College is through the gate at a comic gallop. John and his upstairs neighbor, Stanley, stir up a whirlwind of silly complications as they desperately attempt to protect John’s secret.

Playwright Ray Cooney takes the entanglements as far as you can imagine and even further. Director Patrick J. Fennell and his cast are in fine form, which they need to be to keep pace with this unstoppable comic juggernaut.

At the center of the mayhem as John Smith, James (Time Bomb) Gilson has an appealing, unassuming style. For a bigamist, he’s a very likable fellow--just a regular, decent citizen who saves grandmothers and can’t say no to the ladies. Smith’s inescapable ruination overtakes Gilson like a slow strangulation, compounded by the fact that he’s forced to eat, well, not exactly his words, but something just as difficult to swallow.

As Stanley, Stephen Flores starts slowly, but grows into some very funny moments as the plot thickens. Erin Pipes, as the first Mrs. Smith, dissolves delightfully into hysteria, and Monte Collins, with his wonderful basset-hound face, seems made for the role of the well-meaning but misguidedly compassionate Detective Porterhouse.

Director Fennell does just enough to keep the comedy rolling without overwhelming the particularly dry British humor that can be at once witty and nonsensical.

There are a few things about which one might quibble (the second Mrs. Smith, for example, thinks nothing of opening the front door dressed only in her seductive skivvies), but “Run for Your Wife” is funny, funny, funny, and who wants to argue with that?

“Run for Your Wife”, Studio Theatre, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday matinees, 3 p.m. Ends Sunday. SOLD OUT. (714) 582-4763. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Mary Smith: Erin Pipes Barbara Smith: Jackie Taylor John Smith: James (Time Bomb) Gilson Detective Sergeant Throughton: Bradley Walker Stanley Gardner: Stephen Flores Newspaper Reporter: Tim Mull Detective Sergeant Porterhouse: Monte Collins Bobby Franklyn: Jason Horsey

A Department of Theatre Arts and Associated Student Government of Saddleback College production. Written by Ray Cooney. Directed by Patrick J. Fennell. Scenery: Wally Huntoon. Costumes/Makeup: Charles Castagno. Lights/Sound: Kevin Cook. Set construction: Michael Collins.