So Farce So Good

Ray Cooney keeps it in the family

by Mark Cofta

Hedgerow Theatre celebrates its 85th season with its sixth annual summer farce by Ray Cooney. It Runs in the Family follows a familiar formula, but that's not a bad thing when the parts add up to such a satisfying whole.

Cooney's recipe for farce starts with a hapless hero � here it's Dr. Mortimore, played by Anthony Marsala � facing an urgent situation that's suddenly complicated exponentially. He's about to deliver an important speech to 200 international neurologists, but St. Andrew's Hospital is abuzz because Christmas is three days away. Then Nurse Jane (Carlyn Miller) enters, after 18 years, to reveal that Mortimore fathered a son who's now downstairs facing arrest.

Our hero launches into a flurry of increasingly far-fetched fibs (his motto: "If you're going to tell a lie, tell a whopper") and instead of digging himself out of trouble, sinks deeper in. All of the characters and situations are as if tossed into a blender, with Cooney and director Penelope Reed hitting the "frenzy" button.

Reed assembles a cast of mixed abilities for this challenging romp. Zoran Kovcic � who also designed the glorious, four-doored set in shades of plum, and even manages parking in Hedgerow's small lot � leads the way with a masterfully wifty, bumbling, stammering performance as Dr. Mortimore's dim-witted confidant and co-conspirator, Dr. Bonney. Another Cooney veteran, Susan Wefel, plays Mortimore's savvy wife, and Maggie Flynn knows just what to do as Bonney's dotty mother.

Every weapon in the farceurs' arsenal gets a turn: spit takes, squirting soda siphons, offstage crashes, tug-of-wars and, of course, men in dresses, swinging doors and slamming lids. The hospital setting invites comic use of gurneys and wheelchairs � and you just know that someone's due for a big needle in the ass. Everything's PG by American standards, because the British prefer their sex in double-entendre form: "I've had a bit too much Christmas punch," one character complains, "and it went straight to my loins." Nudge-nudge!

That said, It Runs in the Family could do with a British-to-American glossary. References to Coronation Street (TV soap opera), pantos (vaudevillelike holiday shows) and Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), as well as the tradition of calling nurses "Matron" and "Sister," might shoot over some heads. But this kind of fast-paced fun overwhelms minor cultural differences: It Runs in the Family is an unstoppable summer hit.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)

IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY

Through Sept. 9, Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Road, Rose Valley, 610-565-4211, www.hedgerowtheatre.org