A Delightful, but Long, ‘Marriage’

Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble’s new production of Georges Feydeau’s farce “There’s One in Every Marriage” is so good you almost wish it would go on forever. And sometimes it seems as if it will.

Divided into three long and laborious acts, Feydeau’s text (here translated and adapted by Suzanne Grossman and Paxton Whitehead) lacks the swift pace modern audiences have come to expect from farce. That PRTE is able to keep it funny and consistently entertaining is a tribute to the ingenuity of directors Stephanie Shroyer and Marilyn Fox and the 15 cast members.

The premise involves a cad named Pontagnac (Matt McKenzie), who, like most other men in Paris, is scheming to bed Lucienne (Martha Hackett), the wife of a dim-witted lawyer named Vatelin (Geoffrey Lower). After Lucienne says that she would never cheat on her husband unless he cheated on her first, Pontagnac devises a way to catch Vatelin committing adultery.

Because farce often works best on a proscenium stage, where visual gags can be instantly appreciated by the entire audience, PRTE’s choice of a black-box arena at the Gascon Center Theatre poses a serious handicap. The stage is so tiny and the seating so steeply raked we spend much of the performance staring at the tops of actors’ heads.

Yet the company finds creative ways around such problems. Cast members change the scenes as part of a snappy dance routine at the outset of each act. And though it may seem minor, they remember to make eye contact with the audience during asides.

We enjoy “Marriage” a lot more, in fact, because we can sense the performers are having a good time. There’s not a weak link in the chain, but a couple of the smaller performances merit special mention. The ever-winning Orson Bean has impeccable timing as a scene-stealing butler. And Alley Mills, late of TV’s “The Wonder Years,” is a hoot as a Swedish bunny who says she will either love Vatelin or commit “suzycide.”

* “There’s One in Every Marriage,” Gascon Center Theatre, 8735 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends April 2. $15. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 3 hours.