Farce Loses Force : ‘Key for Two’ Gets Off to a Good Start, but Then Things Fall Apart in Second Act

If boulevard comedies are a staple of French theater, the sex farce is a mainstay in London’s West End. In truth, they’re one and the same: Though they deal in sexual carryings-on, they’re totally innocent, hinting rather than showing--the sort of thing you could take your mother to without embarrassment.

Now playing at Long Beach Playhouse, “Key for Two,” by Mark Chapman and Dave Freeman--like their “Move Over, Mrs. Markham”--has become popular fare in small theaters around the country in recent years. The plot is simple. Harriet is the mistress of two boyfriends who are each unaware of the other. Each complains about the expenses of their “second home” but Harriet is determined to maintain her elegant life-style.

Besides the checks, they fill the larder. Gordon, an advertising man, brings eggs from his wife’s chickens, Alec, a fishing magnate, brings fish. Gordon is tired of fish for dinner, and Alec is beginning to hate omelets. But they, and Harriet, are blissfully happy with the arrangement. Of course, as farce goes, suddenly they arrive on the same night, along with Harriet’s dear friend Anne, who is escaping from her drunken husband Richard.

The outlandish confusions, as in all good farce, result from Harriet and Anne’s explanation to each of the characters of who the other characters are, and maintaining their fabrications. The difficulty of this is compounded when Gordon’s and Alec’s wives suddenly appear, along with Anne’s sodden spouse.

It’s a funny play, and under Steven Fiorillo’s partially successful direction, this production works for most of Act 1, when the four principals are alone. The timing is impeccable, and the reality of the performances underlines the authors’ crisp writing.

Yvonne Robertson is charming and honest as Harriet, and Kimberly Erin Adams is bubbling and bright as Anne during this first act. Allen Sewell, as Gordon, and Robert Kokol, as Alec, both sparkle with knowledgeable timing in the beginning.

The second act looks as though it’s from a different production. Robertson starts to walk “funny,” elbows out and legs spread. Adams becomes much too coy. Sewell and Kokol let their timing slip trying for physical humor. They all seem to have lost the sincerity that is the basis of good comedy, especially farce.

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Fiorillo also lets too much slip between the cracks in Act 2. When Gordon supposedly breaks his leg slipping on a fish in the kitchen, Anne bandages his foot, not his leg. When Harriet and Anne explain the apartment is a medical facility, Anne becomes Sister Anne, but merely wraps a towel sloppily around her head, instead of making it into a proper wimple, which would be funnier with her scant costume.

Then Richard Reardon enters as Anne’s drunken mate, overdoing the drunkenness and losing a lot of laughs, once very carefully scooting himself across the bedroom floor to exit with a calculated sobriety.

He is followed by Rebecca Lenehan as Gordon’s wife, gowned like a duchess, posing and attitudinizing, and at one point mugging and noisily flipping a magazine’s pages during someone else’s scene. Joan Meissenburg, as Alec’s wife is better, but is so consistently sour that one doesn’t wonder that Alec has a mistress for relief.

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* “Key for Two,” Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage, 5021 E. Anaheim St. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays Aug. 29 and Sept. 12, 2 p.m. Ends Sept. 18. $12-$15. (562) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours.

Allen Sewell: Gordon

Yvonne Robertson: Harriet

Robert Kokol: Alec

Kimberly Erin Adams: Anne

Rick Reardon: Richard

Rebecca Lenehan: Magda

Joan Meissenburg: Mildred

A Long Beach Playhouse production of Mark Chapman and Dave Freeman’s sex farce. Director:Steven Fiorillo. Scenic design: Diane MacDonald and Eugene MacDonald. Lighting design: Eugene MacDonald. Sound design: Barry Schwam, Christopher Aruffo and Gary Parkhouse. Costume design: Donna Fritsche. Stage manager: Scott Fiorillo.