Even if you entered the Timber Lake Playhouse's Boeing-Boeing unaware that author Marc Camoletti's play was a farcical comedy - its elbow-in-the-ribs title somehow not divulging that information - all it would take is one look at Nathan Dahlkemper's scenic design to know that some serious slapstick was bound to be in store.
On Thursday, I attended the Timber Lake Playhouse musical The Spitfire Grill, and caught another presentation of the piece - this time at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre - the very next night. I'm actually somewhat disappointed that no additional area venues staged the show over the weekend, because even after two outstanding Spitfire Grills in a row, I would've happily made time for more.
As befits a musical based on the biblical book of Genesis, Children of Eden starts In the Beginning. Yet in discussing the Timber Lake Playhouse's current presentation of the show, it seems more appropriate to start at the end, because the curtain call - arriving more than two-and-a-half hours after the opener - appears to be one of the few sequences in which the performers understand exactly what's expected of them.
When attending a detective spoof with the title Red Herring, you probably shouldn't expect its storyline(s) to hold together in a way that makes much sense, and Michael Hollinger's farcical noir seems particularly all-over-the-map; somehow, in 130 minutes, the play's author squeezes in adultery, bigamy, murder, treason, neutron-bomb testing, the McCarthy hearings, a show-tune-loving Soviet, and a top-secret microfilm stashed in a block of Velveeta.
Peppy, cheeky, and somewhat unsatisfying - though in ways that are rarely the fault of its current Timber Lake Playhouse presentation - Flight of the Lawnchair Man boasts a friendly spirit, a number of witty and weird diversions, and a brisk running time, clocking in (with the intermission) at a mere 105 minutes. Yet for all of its strengths, and unlike its determined hero, this musical comedy never really takes off. Director Chuck Smith's production is ingeniously designed and energetically performed, but the show itself is a little bit You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a little bit The Wedding Singer, and a little bit Bat Boy, and about as stylistically awkward as that description implies.
After an extended silent-movie montage - one featuring clips from F.W. Murnau's horror classic Nosferatu - and the appearance of the show's title, the Timber Lake Playhouse's Sunset Boulevard opens with screenwriter Joe Gillis (Brandon Ford) at the bottom of a swimming pool. Granted, the water, like that montage, is a multimedia projection, and Gillis is standing (and singing) rather than floating face-down. But the Act I prelude is still enough like the opening to Billy Wilder's beloved Hollywood noir that fans of the Sunset Boulevard movie will likely smile in recognition and appreciation, and we're returned to this scene of a future crime at the start of the musical's second act.
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