Review: ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS at Good Theater

Portland’s Good Theater's newest production is a side-splittingly funny, perfectly timed farce with ancient roots in Italy’s Commedia dell’Arte, Richard Bean’s ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS.  Based on the timeless classic, Carlo Goldoni’s 18th century The Servant of Two Masters, Bean updates the action to Brighton in the U.K. in the 1960s and reveals the enduring universality of Goldoni’s characters and the predictable, but perfect, recipe for comedy.  The Good Theater’s production, though small in scale, is large in impact, delivering an evening of hearty laughter and impeccable comedic technique by the eleven-member cast, led by the irrepressible Dustin Tucker in a role which he was born to play.

Playwright Bean’s script follows Goldoni’s scenario about a hapless servant who hires himself out to two masters in an effort to assuage his hunger and make ends meet.  However, he must also make certain neither employer learns of the other, and he spends the better part of the play’s two-plus hours devising a harrowing list of schemes to make his plan work.  In the process, he becomes involved in his “guvnors’” complicated lives, is forced to play two characters, himself, and has his wits and energy sorely tested in a series of madcap, near-miss scenes.  In classic Commedia fashion, all is happily resolved and revealed in the closing moments of the play, as the entire cast launches into the song/dance celebration, Gary Olding/Richard Bean’s “Tomorrow Looks Good from Here.”

Both the Commedia originals and Bean’s are stereotypes with prescribed roles in the comedy, and Bean’s superimposing onto the originals a cast of mobster families in 1960s Brighton, while staying true to the essence of the genre,  works with sassy contemporary charm.

Sally Wood directs with a sure hand for pacing and a flair for the physical comedy that this play relies upon so heavily. She keeps the kinetic flow going at a madcap pace and encourages, especially for the protagonist, Francis Henshall, the kind of improvisation inherent in the genre.

Despite the confines of the small stage at the Good Theater, set designers Steve Underwood and Tracy Washburn (Props Meg Anderson) manage to create an attractive, minimalistic set that serves as multiple locales with some simple changes.  Colorful, and slightly two-dimensional, the décor has the feeling of a children’s storybook, adding to the improbable magic of the piece.  Ian Odlin’s lighting reinforces the effect, while Michelle Handley’s costumes capture the period. The uncredited sound design with a series of tracks from the 1960s is delightfully atmospheric. Technical Director Craig Robinson and Stage Manager Michael Lynch keep the tricky timing of the show running perfectly.

The eleven-member cast is comprised of quite a few actors making their Good Theater debuts, as well as Good veterans.  As an ensemble, they do a credible job of the working-class British accents and demonstrate an affinity for the style of the piece.  Paul Haley is appropriately pompous and bombastic as the attorney Harry Dangle, while Mark Rubin is all gangster toughness as Charlie “the Duck” Clench.  Morgan Amelia Fanning makes Pauline Clench a delightfully dim ingenue with a vacuous gaze, piping voice, and flouncing blonde wig.  As her suitor Alan Dangle, Pierce Ducker creates the perfect parody of a self-declared poet and actor, turning his scenes into comic melodrama.  As the second pair of star-crossed lovers, Heather Irish camps prettily as Crabbe impersonates her supposedly dead brother, while Nathaniel Stephenson plays her lover, Stanley Stubbins as a clueless, spoiled, self-satisfied gentleman.  As other servants and retainers, Ashanti Williams (Lloyd Boateng), Daniel Cuff (Gareth), and Ethan Rhoad (Alfie) contribute amusingly to the general mayhem. On the evening I attended due to the illness of Molly Bryant Roberts, the role of Dolly, Henshall's eventual love interest, was taken over by Director Sally Wood, who heroically kept the evening going while discreetly referring to a small script.

But as the title of the play suggests, there is one man – and one actor – at the heart of the action. Dustin Tucker, well known for his talent at playing multiple characters in a single show and creating brilliant one-man shows, is nothing short of dazzling as Francis Henshall (and his various identities like Paddy).  At once impish, winsome, endearing, and then scheming, manipulative, and opportunistic, Tucker is the perfect Harlequin figure at the center of this Commedia script. A bundle of seemingly inexhaustible energy, he is a master of the physical comedy the play demands, and at the same time, he is skilled at the verbal intricacies and tongue twisters that punctuate the dialogue – not to mention the note-perfect use of accents.  And, most of all, he is an accomplished improviser – a central trait for the Commedia farce – devising physical and verbal business that convulses the audience in laughter.  The eating scene in which Henshall attempts to serve both masters an elaborate dinner while stealing some for himself is a pure revolving door farce capped by a hilarious exchange with an audience member.

In the final scene when convention requires the farce to unravel, the pairs of characters to be matched, and a happy ending to ensue, ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS ends, as would the 18th century Goldoni play, with a song and dance by the ensemble.  This time the number is an original composition (Bean/Olding), “Tomorrow Looks Good From Here,” and the sheer exuberance of the cast, as they each get a chance at the mic and dance with glee, signals the joy created by the evening.  This is comedy at its most predictable, its most carefully regulated by convention and rules, and yet, because of the stunning dramatic and improvisational talents of the performers, predictability seems to be upended in a breathlessly delightful journey toward a new shared experience between actors and audience. This very ancient story is fresh and vibrant once again.

Photos courtesy of the Good Theater, Steve Underwood, photographer

ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS runs at the Good Theater,  76 Congress Street, Portland, ME from January 17- February 11, 2024     www.goodtheater.com  207-835-0895