THE UNDERPANTS

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "The Underpants" by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin

Date: Sun, Jan 8, 2006 11:07 PM

Quicktake on THE UNDERPANTS

     One could argue that this script should more fairly be labeled as "based" on rather than "adapted" from German Expressionist author Carl Sternheim's most remembered work. Steve Martin has reduced the cast, eliminated most of the philosophical implications, but fortunately improved the farce. This style of comedy is one of the Lyric's strong points, and under Daniel Gidron's sophisticated direction and with a cast of seasoned local professionals, the result is thoroughly entertaining if somewhat intellectually bland. Gail Astrid Buckley's costume are ideal as ever and Cristina Todesco's set has simple elegance.

     Caroline Lawton is the young wife, Louise, whose bloomers accidentally fall as she's watching a royal parade. IRNE winner Steven Barkhimer is overbearingly Germanic as her government clerk husband, Theo, an older man. Lewis D. Wheeler, a rich poet, and Neil A. Casey, a Jewish barber, are the couple's two new lodgers, who each witnessed Louise's mishap and find her suddenly attractive. She's encouraged to accept the poet's advances by her nosey neighbor, Gertrude, played wryly by Stephanie Clayman. Casey, in his inimitable fashion, keeps getting in the way. For variety, Robert Bonotto shows up in the second act as Klinglehoff, a sober scientist, who's also seeking a room and gets an eyeful. Martin's take on this classic is fast and funny if rather inconclusive, aimed at crowd-pleasing more than examining the ramifications of a rigid society and bourgeois complacency. It's played across the country in both red and blue states incidentally.

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"The Underpants" by Carl Sternheim, Jan. 6 - Feb. 4, 2006

Lyric Stage at Copley YWCA

140 Clarendon, Boston, (617) 585 - 5678 new number
Lyric Stage Co.