No Time to Hone Timing?

British playwright Ray Cooney writes some of the snazziest little farces making the rounds today. It’s a shame they contain so many stumbling blocks for unwary directors. Like all good farces, they are like music and must be timed almost to the split second. Their laughs are not so much in the dialogue as in the action.

That’s what defeats the current revival of Cooney’s “Run for Your Wife” at Cypress Civic Theatre, directed by Michael Ross, who is usually more careful. It looks as though he wasn’t watching the rehearsals too closely. Most of the timing is out the window, and what timing remains on stage is all over the place. Although the production gets some of its laughs--on obvious laugh lines--most of Cooney’s loony humor is lost.

It’s a typical farce plot, reminiscent of Feydeau, with much sexual innuendo that really is as innocent as it can be. John is a cab driver living in London’s Wimbledon suburb with his wife Mary. He also lives in another London suburb, Streatham, with his wife Barbara.

His little date book usually keeps everything in order, and neither wife is aware of the other. A set-to with an old lady during a purse-snatching undoes it all. John tries to help the woman, but she thinks he’s one of the assailants and hits John over the head with her purse, knocking him cold. At the police station he gives one address, but, still groggy, he gives his other address at the hospital. The tangled cords of his secret life fly apart.

A good deal of the problem with the direction is that John is played by Arnold Crouch, who is really Michael Ross. The director has miscast himself and seems very unsure of his lines, and he gives the other actors too free a rein. Ross is good enough an actor to have carried it off with another director and good enough a director to have made the play work with another lead.

Della Lisi and Giovanna Fusco, in spite of the timing problems, are just right as John’s libidinous mates, dashing across the stage mostly in lingerie, while keeping it perfectly clear that the same set is meant to be their individual apartments. Fusco is allowed several moments of uncontrolled shrieking and stamping that the director should have stopped.

The key role of John’s friend and neighbor Stanley, who gets more involved in John’s crumbling paradise than he wants, is overplayed outrageously by Peter Hill, who under surer guidance would have been much more effective, and much funnier.

Ken Jaqosz and George Norment play the two policemen trying to unravel John’s secret life with some reserve, which works to their advantage. But Ross has allowed Damien Lorton to play Barbara’s new gay neighbor, Bobby, as a screaming queen, an image that hasn’t been funny since the stereotype was laughed at in the 1930s. All Cooney’s characters, as all farce characters, only work right when they’re played as absolutely real.

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* “Run for Your Wife,” Cypress Civic Theatre, 5172 Orange Ave., Cypress. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. $10. Ends Oct. 10. (714) 229-6796. Running time: 2 hours.

Arnold Crouch: John

Giovanna Fusco: Mary

Della Lisi: Barbara

Peter Hill: Stanley

Ken Jaqosz: Porterhouse

George Norment: Troughton

Damien Lorton: Bobby

A Cypress Civic Theatre production of Ray Cooney’s farce. Produced by Melissa Pearson, Sue McClanahan. Directed by Michael Ross. Scenic design: Brian Sunley, George George. Lighting design: George George. Sound design: Gary D. Dietz. Stage manager: David Alluan.