[NEohioPAL] Review of "Around the World in 80 Days" at the Cleveland Play House

[Bob Abelman]

Play House's take on Verne classic an absolute joy

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 1/23/09

 

In the mid-1800s, when Jules Verne was perfecting his writing of futuristic adventure novels, he was advised by a publisher to add comical accents to his suspenseful stories to make them marketable. Although his Around the World in 80 Days is no comedy, per se, the adaptation running at the Cleveland Play House most certainly is. And it is an uproarious comedy at that.

 

Playwright Mark Brown has managed to reduce Verne's massive novel without losing any of its charm, and Los Angeles-based director Bart DeLorenzo keeps the performance moving at a consistently vigorous clip. But it is the five actors powering the production who are clearly responsible for the funny. The verbiage is all Verne, but its conversion to hilarious interplay, perfectly timed repartee and genuinely witty running gags is all Keythe Farley, Brian Sills, Michael Weber, Joe Foust and Anna Khaja.

 

It is 1872, and the exasperatingly fastidious Victorian gentleman Phileas Fogg has made a wager with fellow members of the elite Reform Club of London that he can circle the globe - by rail and by steamer - in 80 days. His motivation for doing so is simply to demonstrate that it can, mathematically, be done. Fogg is accompanied on this most absurd adventure by his French manservant Passepartout, and is incessantly followed from country to country by a bumbling detective who believes that Fogg is a notorious bank robber.

 

Throughout this romp - from London to Suez to Bombay to Calcutta to Hong Kong to Yokohama to San Francisco to New York to London - Fogg and Passepartout encounter an odd assortment of more than two dozen characters. Nearly all of them are played by the very talented Foust. Each character is distinctive, delightful and appears on stage through slight-of-hand transformations. Late in the production, Foust's costume changes are so fast and frequent that they develop into an in-joke between the audience and the players. 

 

Sills and Weber play Passepart and Detective Fix, respectively, as well as a handful of minor characters. Both brazenly chew up the scenery. Not a single opportunity to extract something clever or comical from the dialogue is passed over, and these fine actors hit the mark each and every time. Never do they lapse into silly or slapstick or safe, as performers with less discipline have done in other productions of this play, and never do they lack spontaneity or the sheer joy of performing. They are an absolute pleasure to watch. 

 

Farley, as Phileas Fogg, and Khaja, as Aouda, a maiden rescued from being sacrificed during the brief jaunt through India, have the thankless task of being Zeppos in a cast teeming with Grouchos. That is, they are obligated to be restrained and dignified while the comedy flies overhead. Farley and Khaja do so wonderfully. They are interesting and thoroughly endearing and, by being so, keep the audience engaged in the action rather than passively observing it. 

 

All of the crazy action that transpires during this epic journey around the world - a wager at the club, a monsoon at sea, a speeding train jumping a collapsing trestle, an Indian attack, a drinking binge in Singapore, a sled ride over the frozen plain, an elephant excursion through the jungle - takes place on one stationary set designed by Takeshi Kata. Through clever lighting and sound effects by Lap Chi Chu and James Swonger, magnificent costuming by Ann Closs-Farley, and the manipulation of chairs and tables by the performers, the stately library room of Fogg's home becomes all things and does so sufficiently. (Audience members unwilling to employ their imaginations will be less impressed with the staging.)

 

Plays based on novels are often hit-or-miss and, upon close examination, Mark Brown's work does a bit of both. Fortunately, this troupe of performers at the Cleveland Play House rises above the material and takes us on trip most certainly worth taking. 

 

Around the World in 80 Days continues through Feb. 1 in The Cleveland Play House's Drury Theatre. For tickets, which range from $21 to $64 ($10 students), call (216) 795-7000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.

 
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