[ssba]

The Dock Brief

Reviewed by Paul Birchall

Pacific Resident Theatre

Through Dec. 13

This amusing one-act by the late playwright John Mortimer is a genial, slight piece and touchingly old fashioned.  You just don’t really see this sort of play anymore:  an intimate two-hander involving a pair of fellows who sort of banter and bluster with each other.  The dialogue is puffy and charming, perfect for actors to bloviate and chew like beef jerky, and the characters are deft and appealing while tending towards the cartoonish.  

P.G. Wodehouse used to write stuff like this – frothy and insubstantial, laced with humor that makes you smile, perhaps chuckle a little, rather than laugh out loud.  Of course, Mortimer wrote the play in 1958 – even prior to his success penning the Rumpole books and TV shows.  If it were written today, though, one suspects the piece would equate to more of a Saturday Night Live or Groundlings sketch than a full on play. 

In a dank British jail cell, bug-eyed barrister Morganhall (Frank Collison) visits his client, accused murderer Fowle (Wesley Mann). Morganhall is a sort of public defender — but his reputation is so poor, he has never actually been called upon to publicly conduct a case. Fowle randomly selected Morganhall to defend him, and Morganhall sees this as the chance to use the case, not only to save his client but also to catapult himself to fame and fortune.  The problem, of course, is that Morganhall is entirely inept — except in his Walter Mitty-like imagination — and also that Fowle is totally guilty of the crime of which he’s been accused.  

Mortimer’s dialogue sparkles in its lovely mid-century fashion — and what Anglophile can resist all the insider references to the British legal system, with its references to being “dead as mutton,” or “laughs on crackers” (a glossary is included in the program).  Director Robert Bailey’s straightforward staging perhaps errs in the depiction of the two characters as being contrived cartoons, when a little more realism might have been more engaging — but it’s quite clear that the performers’ comic timing skills are adroit and subtle.  Collison’s boistrous Morganhall, desperate to be liked and haunted by how his clumsy abilities don’t match his inner opinion of himself, is a pleasure to watch — and so is Mann’s affable, but clearly murderous criminal.  

The production is perfectly well executed, intelligently performed, and enjoyable witty in tone and presentation.  This is excellent stuff for a wry evening of upbeat theater — but there’s a reason why the work hasn’t been seen in decades, even with Mortimer’s popularity:  It’s one of the writer’s most minor and insubstantial works.  Even so, it skates a long way on sheer charm.  

Pacific Residents Theater, 705 1/2 Venice Blvd, Venice; Thurs.- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through Dec. 13.  (310) 822-8392, https://pacificresidenttheatre.com