Review: Boeing Boeing by Austin Playhouse
by Catherine Dribb

Prepare For Takeoff!  Austin Playhouse Is Flying Farce Class!

Boeing Boeing, or boing boing as the case may be, with actors bouncing all over the stage and in and out of doors, is a modern farce written by Marc Camoletti in the classic French style.  Directed by Don Toner, it is running now until February 26 in the tent at Mueller that is Austin Playhouse’s temporary home.

Boeing Boeing is an uplifting tale of love, but not just because it features three airline stewardesses. Camoletti and British translator Beverly Cross were careful to balance the chauvinistic egoism that rules leading man Bernard’s carefully calculated love life with the Parisian mantra of love. There’s no Prufrock in Paris with Bernard, played by David Stokey. His abundant confidence is communicated in the first scene as he records in his timetables when fiancée number one (the American) will leave (in just a few minutes) and return (on Monday).

Janet, is from the So-uth (yes, that’s two syllables) and Lara Toner does the character with her suitably Southern drawl and hair-do. Janet wants only the best of the best in life: a millionaire husband. Unbeknownst to Bernard, Janet matches him in her frivolous attitude toward marriage. She prefers practising kissing on the couch with Bernard’s old school pal Robert, just arrived in Paris, to monogamy or marriage.

Robert, played by Zach Thompson has accepted Bernard’s invitation to stay with him until he finds his own place. He quickly learns of his old school chum’s unique lifestyle.  The challenge of juggling three airline stewardesses so they will never run into each other, thanks to that handy dandy airline log, sets Bernard, and now Robert who’s in on the secret, up for a big… well… farce.

The very robust Judith, played by Laura Walberg, mistakenly kisses Robert in an attempt to surprise Bernard. When she falls for Robert, yet another string unravels in Bernard’s carefully woven life. In the long term this development will in fact benefit Bernard. As comedy and culture would have it, he chooses one woman with whom to spend his life -- and to get there he has to devote the last half hour of the show to untangling himself from the other two.

Mixed in with all this madness is the maid played by Playhouse favorite Bernadette Nason. Mumbling all the while, Nason dutifully participates in Bernard’s grand scheme from the managerial side: changing the menus, the bedding, and even the token picture in the house. Once all three fiancées are in the apartment at the same time in the last scene of the show, Bertha, like the other women, has had it with Bernard (not to mention with Robert who’s now taken up with the German).  Even she, Bernard’s token source of stability, threatens to leave.

All six actors deliver delightful performances. Amidst the chaos Stokey and England manage to bring to the absurdity an element of humanity.  On the opposite end, the furniture-jumping Thompson and the brandy-swigging Nason keep us in the audience laughing and perhaps forgetting for a few hours the farces of our own lives.

This evening of comedy is colored brightly by accomplished costumer Buffy Manners, who has certainly earned her own  wings with airline outfits perfectly fitting the women and the period. The set is well used, maximizing space despite what appeared to be a very small backstage area (Stokey got stuck holding the door at intermission as older patrons were ushered to the bathrooms behind the tent). There was some anxiety regarding weather and the prospect of being stuck in a tent in Central Austin, but it was unfounded. The facility worked great for a production of this nature.

I mean, I wouldn’t want to see Man of la Mancha in there, but we all hope the new theater will be ready by then!

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a fun and relaxing evening full of laughs, check out Austin Playhouse’s Boeing Boeing, playing Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.  There's even a special Tuesday performance on the 14th, with Valentine’s champagne and dessert.

Review by Claire Christine Spera for the Statesman's Austin360.com Seeing Things blog, January 30

Review by Adam Roberts for the Austin Chronicle, February 16

EXTRA

Click to view the photo feature of Buffy Manners' costumes for Boeing Boeing

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Boeing Boeing
by Marc Camoletti
Austin Playhouse