A Clean Brush
Reviewed by Iris Mann
Theatre 40
Through Oct. 23
Norm Foster, with some sixty plays to his credit, is Canada’s most prolific and produced playwright. This farce is a world premiere and the sixth of his plays to be presented by Theatre 40.
At moments one can glean that, as written, there is a good deal of humor here. The two lead characters tend to say whatever comes to mind, with no filters, and their dialogue should provoke laughter. In addition, Foster has constructed the work in such a way that amusing surprises frequently unfold. Some of the speeches go on too long, but that is easily fixed.
However, under Howard Storm’s direction, there is a heaviness permeating the proceedings that militates against any of the comedy inherent in the script. It’s too bad. Storm did such a wonderful job a few years ago with another Foster play, called Screwball Comedy.
This story concerns two house painters, Mello Boggs (Michael Kerr) and Dick Stern (James Lemire), who have been hired to coat a basement room so the owner of the house, Zoe Craig (Mandy Fason), can rent it and make some money. Zoe is a recent widow whose husband had a heart attack and then got badly injured when he fell and hit his head against some fireplace implements. There was blood everywhere. We quickly learn that the widow doesn’t miss her late husband at all because he drank, gambled, was never home and lost his job. Much later we also learn that her husband’s head was hit seventeen times.
As the men are working, Lois (Susan Priver), an intrusive and pushy neighbor, comes in and suggests that the death of Zoe’s husband was not an accident. The two painters are left wondering if they are masking a murder. Complicating matters is Mello’s growing attraction to the lovely Zoe.
Although most of the laugh lines get lost in this production, one of Foster’s comedic devices did elicit scattered chuckles from the night’s sparse audience. It was a running joke that emanated from Mello asking Dick if he was Jewish, because his last name, Stern, sounded like a Jewish name.
Dick replied that he never thought about it, and nobody ever said anything about it, not his mother, or his father, or his uncle, Shlomo. In the course of the play, Dick drops several Jewish expressions, seemingly without being aware of what those expressions suggest about his ethnicity. At one point, he says he was schvitzing (sweating) while anticipating a reunion with his son after three years. At another point, he says Mello has some schmutz on his face. Also, he’s got a sister whose name is Zissel.
It appears that the director misled Lemire into shouting his dialogue throughout, with no variation or shading, an approach that only adds to the weightiness of the atmosphere. It also makes some of his lines unintelligible. I understand that his character needs to contrast with that of Kerr, but there must be another way of accomplishing it.
As for Kerr, he projects a likeable, sincere, intelligent innocence, as his character voices some outlandish statements and observations blended with continually repeated examples of political correctness. But the actor tends to hit his lines too forcefully. A lighter touch might clarify some of the humor.
The two women do the best work. Fason comes across as the most real of the characters. She has an appealing, slightly seductive quality and her delivery is more in keeping with the level of the writing. Priver is properly oily, tricky and somewhat Machiavellian.
The set design by Jeff G. Rack is impressive, as is usually the case with this theater, and Michèle Young’s costume design fits the subject matter admirably.
Theatre 40 – Reuben Cordova Theatre at Beverly Hills High School, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills; Thurs.- Sat., 7:30 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through Oct. 23. (310) 364-0535 or https://theatre40.org. Running time: approximately two hours with one intermission.
