Review: Boeing Boeing by Tex-Arts
by Hannah Neuhauser
Is there anything bad with an in-flight movie?
It’s free entertainment. You already paid for an over-priced flight and complimentary drinks. Unless you want to pay an upcharge for WiFi, you might as well watch something that can help time go by. Once the flight is over, you grab your luggage and move on with your life. The past two to three hours evaporate into a blur.
The TexArts production of Boeing Boeing feels like an in-flight movie. It is brightly packaged, cheerful, sprinkled with moments of well-timed hilarity, but mostly forgettable. This is not to deny there are highlights or claim there are poor performances. Quite the contrary! The actors clearly know their lines and volley well off one other. I found Gabriella the most compelling character because of Erin Ryan’s naturalistic performance and grounding presence. Tyler Soares’s flight attendant suits are beautifully striking, Ethan Rogers’ layout of Bernard’s apartment is tastefully eclectic, and the overall production impeccably clean.
But maybe that’s the problem – everything regarding the plot is too clean.
Boeing Boeing by French playwright Marc Camoletti is a favorite of community theatres. It was rendered into English by Beverly Cross in 1962 and is on record as the French play most widely performed across the world. It's about Bernard (DJ Delcecchio), an entrepreneurial bachelor juggling three fiancées. How does he manage it? He doesn’t have to! Each fiancée is flight attendant for a different international airline. It's all perfectly calculated until Robert (Reed Sydek) comes to visit, and wouldn’t you know? All three fiancées land in Paris on the same day.
Act I is pure set up – explaining the system and presenting each fiancé in turn. All the while, Bernard’s maid, Berthe (Malia Moss) moans about how ridiculous the situation is in the first place.
Marc Camoletti’s play, famous as a French sex farce, looks like it's setting up for an explosion of consequences to go off in Act II, but . . . it merely yelps and retreats. The obvious development would for the three deceived women to meet each other in the apartment and conspire to out Bernard's infidelities, wouldn't it? Nope! This is a tease. In fact, the three fiancées never meet – only two come face to face, and when they do, one has decided to be with Bernard’s friend Robert instead. The third woman up and leaves to marry a rich bronco back in the States. There's no comeuppance. The two male leads are rewarded with a stewardess apiece and neither woman is the wiser. When every issue is tidily tied into neat little bows, there's little room for the audience to be caught up in emotional turbulence, which is what would make the play memorable. The guys get away with it. Oh, how 1960's.
Maybe if the pacing had been faster or if lines had started from a lower dynamic in volume,and built into a stronger climax, that would have raised the stakes? Act II felt stiff even though actors were giving it their all – Ella Mia Carter’s Gretchen chewed the scenery at every opportunity. The plot was missing a breakthrough that could have pushed it over the edge and into my memory as a truly engaging comedy.
You get what you pay for, I suppose. If you’re looking for a light evening of community theatre, TexArts’ Boeing Boeing has only a few lulls in a fun scenario and well-executed production.
TexArts’ Boeing Boeing plays one more weekend from October 1-4, 2026, at 1110 Ranch Road 620 S, Lakeway, TX 78734. Tickets can be purchased on their website at https://www.tex-arts.org.
Boeing Boeing
by Marc Camoletti
Tex-Arts
September 18 - October 4, 2026
Tex-Arts, Lakeway
