The Heir Apparent
David Ives
Adapted from Le
Légataire universel by Jean-François Regnard
 |
| Lisette, (Katie Rubin*), Madame Argonte (Elizabeth Carter*), Eraste (Kenny Toll), and Isabelle (Khalia Davis*) watch Geronte’s imposter (c. Patrick Kelly Jones*) sign his will in Aurora’s Bay Area Premiere of The Heir Apparent |
But, this is the late 1600s/early 1700s when stock
characters, bawdy humor, and Moliere were all the rage in France and
beyond. Jean-François
Regnard (retuning from being captured by pirates and sold into slavery) decided
to bring the fun to the Italian-speaking audiences, writing in 1708 for an
Italian troupe based in Paris, the Comédie-Italienne,
a comedy about greed, love, family, and mix-ups galore entitled Le Légataire universel. Jump ahead three- centuries, and David Ives
thinks it is time to update the fast-moving, joke-a-minute, parlor parody by
creating a new adaptation, keeping the rhyming scheme and the early 18th
century Parisian setting and sprinkling into the language references like
“Cadillac,” “Godzilla,” “Bromo Seltzer,” “girly mags, “ and “national health
insurance.” It is this version of The Heir Apparent that Aurora Theatre
offers as a Bay Area premiere.
The rich (he has a million francs, we are reminded time and
again), mucous-throated, coughing Geronte is nearing his last breath (or, is
he?). Money-hungry buzzards are circling
the grouchy, old miser with franc-sized tears pouring from their eyes. Nephew Crispin, in-love servants Lisette and
Eraste, Crispin’s betrothed Isabelle, and her mother Argante are all watching,
waiting, and especially wanting to influence whom the old guy will today
designate in his will as his sole heir.
Crispin swoons in drippy, doting fashion over his Uncle when he is in
the room and then plots with the wily and willing servants on the side when he
is not on how to get the will consigned to him.
The race is on before Death knocks on the door, but be prepared for a
number of the Grim Reaper’s premature visits to an old man with more lives than
a cat.
Argante has decided that marrying her daughter to the old
coot is the best way to insure all
the money stays close to her, and the old man has taken to the idea with
spit-spouting glee (interspersed, of course, between his ongoing bouts of
nose-turning flatulence). Isabelle, on
the other hand, only wants her Crispin to inherit his uncle’s money so they can
marry. As Geronte prepares his
bridegroom’s attire in between runs to the bathroom and declarations of his
supposed death, Crispin et al create wild and wooly schemes to ensure no one
but Crispin gets the dough -- schemes that include visits of him disguised as a
rude Yankee nephew and as a French, pig-farm niece. The ride is as silly and crazy
as a kid’s Disneyland attraction but just a tad bit bawdier.
Julian Lopez-Morillas sputters and spits, growls and
grumbles, and trips and tumbles as the Scrooge who has the only key to his
treasure chest attached on a string around his neck -- a string just long
enough to reach the length of the theatre to where it sits in a far, enshrined
corner. His Geronte appears at times to
be totally addled and slowly asphyxiating but at other times is fully capable
of hiding many tricks up his long, heavy robe of multi-colored autumn leaves
and flowers, fully ready to thwart any plots on his fortune. He has his eyes on the young, beautiful
Isabelle (Khalia Davis), who can hardly contain her disgust while also
dutifully adhering to her scheming mother’s wishes for all that gold. Elizabeth Carter is the mother-figure
Argante, who wants her daughter to be happy, likes her intended son-in-law well
enough (Crispin), but insists any serious suitor must have a stash of cash,
which Crispin sorely lacks.
Katie Rubin is a maid with a mind of her own who is not shy
in telling her master, Geronte, just what she thinks of him. “Your bowels are the only parts that move,”
she snips as he rushes off stage to his toilet (something he does frequently,
thanks to the frequent potions and enemas she is pumping into him). Lisette is often in the background raising an
eyebrow or a slight smirk or just looking a little impatient and bored with how
long the old man in taking to die. However,
along with the estate’s other servant and her heart-pound, Eraste (Kenny Toll),
she is quite willing to join head over heels (literally) into some of the
increasingly absurd stratagems conceived by Crispin to rid the old man of his
money -- and maybe his life.
And it is this Crispin where so much of the play’s frenetic
energy, ongoing twists and turns, and ridiculous ideas emanate. The whirling wheels within Patrick Kelly
Jones’ head as the plotting Crispin are almost visible in their spinning as we
watch him use one hand to stroke his uncle’s capped head and the other to
scratch his own to figure out the next move of deceit. Taking on disguises to thwart ideas of
leaving the money to anyone but he (something his Uncle seems set definitely
not inclined to do), Crispin enters as an gun-toting fur-trader from America, a
pink-dressed Bo Beep who tends pigs rather than sheep (in this case, duplicated
by the two servants who get the same idea), and even as the dying uncle himself
in order to fool a lawyer come to scribe the will. As schemes unravel (which of course they do),
this Crispin becomes ever more over-the-top with antics any 1950’s I Love Lucy show would have been fully
willing to copy.
And it is important to remember that all the
fortune-seekers’ bantering and bickering, false-hearted doting and background
dickering, and occasional love declaring and love making is all being done in
rhymed couplets.
The final stock character to enter the drawing room, not
showing up until Act Two, is the diminutive lawyer, Scruple, whose four-foot
stature is trailed by long court robes and fronted by two huge feet (hiding the
knees that Lawrence Radecker uses to walk).
His entrance of course opens all sorts of possibilities for jokes of the
legal sort and for the upping of conspiracies to trick him into penning Crispin
into the final will. But, his presence
also leads to a flood of ‘short’ jokes that seem almost endless and that
frankly left me feeling extremely uncomfortable. While understanding an over-the-top comedy of
this sort that is hell-bent for every laugh possible is not too concerned with
being “PC,” I nervously looked around to see who else was in the audience and
if these jokes might have unintended targets.
Even as a 6’3” attendee, I could not help but feel a bit put off as the
puns and pokes continued about the lawyer’s height.
And it is the tendency for repetition and excess that for me
is where The Heir Apparent begins by
the second hour to lose some of his comic appeal. As mentioned upfront in this review, a joke
line or subject is funny the first couple of times; but if repeated over and
again, the effect begins dramatically to lesson. For example, an ingenious stroke of
directorial humor to turn a quick love scene between Crispin and Isabella into
a mimicked French film (with the obligatory, post cigarette) is not done just
once, but reappear for another go or two.
While excess is expected in this early version of slapstick, either a
shorter version or a little more variety along the way would be welcomed. Even the rhyming begins to lose much of its
fun by the end of the play and becomes a bit tiresome.
Eric Sinkkonen has done all he can to create a set that
fulfills the needs for both aesthetic scene setting of the early 1700s as well
as comedic touches for the parody. Rich
red walls, a metallic shuttered window, and marble-looking floors ensure the
former are while touches like a huge grandfather clock whose neighboring
potbelly stove’s flue cuts through the clock’s frame bring the laughs. (The clock, by the way, plays a major part in
the story’s resolution, with much
contribution by Prop Designer Daniel Banatao’s ingenuity.)
Jeff Rowlings and Chris Houston further enhance the rich
setting with light and sound but also contribute to chuckles with well-placed,
right-timed beamed spots and sound spurts.
Callie Floor’s gowns, robes, and employed disguises do their parts to
establish timing and societal status as well as prove essential in producing
some well-deserved, audience guffaws.
Director Josh Costello and the cast and production team of Aurora
Theatre have given a yeoman’s effort in doing everything possible to squeeze all
laughs possible from David Ives’ spicy, saucy, silly The Heir Apparent. For
anyone whose tolerance is high for excess of a good thing, do not miss this
chance to chortle to heart’s content in the over-the-top, well-executed Aurora
Theatre’s modern-language update of a early eighteenth century farce.
Rating: 3 E
The Heir Apparent continues
in an extended run through May 22, 2016 at the Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley,
CA. Tickets are available online at https://auroratheatre.org or by calling 415-843-4822.
Photo
by David Allen
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