Discontinuous Liaisons in ‘How the Other Half Loves’

If drama culminates in someone understanding something, then farce is its opposite. Oedipus realizes he has killed his father (and more); Lear finally understands Cordelia’s worth. In farce, characters misunderstand the crucial facts so utterly that their skewered perceptions create a new reality--a comically altered universe. John believes he is delicately informing Jeff that his wife is having an affair with the mailman while the whole time Jeff thinks they are talking about his dog. The audience gets the big picture while, and partly because, the characters remain restricted to their blinkered portions of it.

Very few living authors write farce as deftly as British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. His marital comedy “How the Other Half Loves,” first performed in 1969, is so accomplished it counterbalances two farces taking place in two different locations simultaneously in the same space. Done right, it can make your head spin. Now at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, David Emmes directs the play with clarity and bite. You may get giddy.

The play sounds difficult to follow but isn’t. The imperious Fiona Foster (Kandis Chappell) sleeps with her husband’s stud employee, Bob Phillips (Robert Curtis-Brown). To cover up, they tell a lie that entangles their own spouses and a clueless third couple, the Featherstones, in a complicated series of misunderstandings. The action is played out in two different living rooms that occupy the same set--so the characters cross in front of one another while playing separate scenes in supposedly separate locations. In one scene, the Featherstones simultaneously attend a Thursday night dinner party hosted by the Fosters, complete with good silver and elegant menu, and a Friday night dinner party thrown by the Phillips at which disgusting soup is served in plastic bowls. Thanks to Ayckbourn’s genius, the scene is not only easy to follow, it’s hilarious.

As the socially superior couple, Paxton Whitehead and Chappell play off each other like the total pros they are; their pairing is a pleasure to watch. Paxton’s Frank is a sublime British twit. Even the knowledge that he is a cuckold cannot shake his sang-froid. His commanding basso voice sits at a funny angle to his complete ineptitude when it comes to any human endeavor, whether it is fixing an appliance or understanding what drives the people around him. Chappell, with just the barest rearrangement of her haughty features, lets you see that Fiona registers all of his stupidity, sometimes even before he utters a word. She is long used to his prattle and to pushing him in whatever direction she wants him to go.

Nike Doukas is fresh and funny as Teresa Phillips, a new mother trying to rescue herself from feeling like a hausfrau without help from her sullen husband. Although no one is likable in this dark comedy, you want to applaud her Teresa when she strikes out against the nasty Fiona with some withering sarcasm while wearing a sharp, puce-colored pantsuit. (In an inexplicably funny aside, Fiona notes that Teresa’s baby looks like an “unsuccessful Hobart.”)

As the couple innocently drawn into the whirlpool of others’ illicit passion, William (Ron Boussom) and Mary (Jane Macfie) Featherstone are both amusing as mousy people trying to make their way through an impossible maze. They are so meek that asking for tonic water at a dinner party is a Herculean feat of nerve.

This production--set in 1972--is as drenched in ‘70s nostalgia as a “Brady Bunch” movie, from the Tom Jones and Bee Gees music we hear between acts to the lava lamp and beanbag chair that decorate the two living rooms, ingeniously designed by Cliff Faulkner. Shigeru Yaji provides wonderful costumes. Fiona’s caftan and elaborate head scarf are funny enough, but Teresa’s fur-trimmed, A-line mini-coat and fringed shoulder bag should find a place in kitsch heaven. In his designs, Yaji has found a way to deepen the pleasures of the farce. They cannot, but we can see the transience of the characters’ fashions--which only adds to the delicious sense of omnipotence Ayckbourn et al provide here.

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* “How the Other Half Loves,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Ends June 29. $18-$41. (714) 957-4033. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

Kandis Chappell: Fiona Foster

Nike Doukas: Teresa Phillips

Paxton Whitehead: Frank Foster

Robert Curtis-Brown: Bob Phillips

Ron Boussom: William Featherstone

Jane Macfie: Mary Featherstone

A South Coast Repertory production. By Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by David Emmes. Sets Cliff Faulkner. Costumes Shigeru Yaji. Lights Paulie Jenkins. Sound Garth Hemphill. Wigs Carol F. Doran. Production manager Michael Mora. Stage manager Andy Tighe.