After a somewhat slow take-off, Hartford Stage's revival of French playwright Marc Camoletti's farce "Boeing Boeing" manages to find a decent cruising altitude, offering its audience a sustained evening of comic turbulence full of slamming doors, unexpected arrivals and meticulous timing.
"Boeing Boeing" is enjoying renewed popularity on the American stage following a successful 2008 Broadway revival that won two Tony Awards and wowed audiences for 279 performances. The initial Broadway run, however, back in 1965, ran for only 23 performances. While "Boeing Boeing" may hold the Guinness Book of World Records title for the most frequently performed French play around the world, it remained a tough sell in the States, and even its movie version, with Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis, is not fondly remembered.
That's probably because the play was considered more of a "sex farce" back in the mid-60's when virtually any play, book or film that pushed the then-acceptable boundaries was considered risque. Its story of a successful American architect living in Paris who maintains carefully timed and coordinated relationships with three attractive international stewardesses no doubt raised eyebrows not just for the situation but for the occasional scantily-clad situations in which the airline hostesses would be presented. Nowadays, the work is more likely to find audience resistance in its portrayal of women as sexual objects or huntresses looking for a husband, preferably a wealthy one.
Today, one tends to admire "Boeing Boeing" for the careful plotting of the playwright that unexpectedly lands all three women in the architect's apartment at the same time and for the ability of a production's director to maximize the comic potential. Maxwell Williams, Hartford Stage's resident director, is a bit slow in establishing Camoletti's elaborate but sometimes belabored set-up, but once the possibility of multiple arrivals is suggested (and thanks also to an opening night "accident" that resulted in one character's ponytail slipping off her wig), the farcical elements kicked in with a bang.
In addition to the architect, Bernard, and the three women, one Italian, one German and one American, who he painstakingly rotates through his apartment based on their divergent flight schedules, Camoletti provides us with Berthe, Bernard's dedicated but much put upon maid, and Robert, a somewhat sheltered school friend of Bernard's who unexpectedly arrives from Wisconsin. These latter two work with Bernard to help cover up and hide his deceits, with Berthe increasingly exasperated and Robert incredulously admiring his friend's machinations.
Williams stages the production on Hartford Stage's proscenium arrangement, which works well for a play that requires frequent exits and entrances through the seven sets of doors that lead in and out of Bernard's sitting room. David M. Barber's set neatly conveys a polished 1960-ish atmosphere of an upscale Paris apartment, with sufficient space to assure that the multitude of doors seems quite natural rather than forced. The furniture is modishly appropriate and even such details as the tile wall that you glimpse through the kitchen's swinging door feel just right.
Thomas Charles LeGalley's costume designs riff tastefully on the classic, Oleg Cassini inspired uniforms of stewardesses of the period, while also creating a hybrid of a classic French maid's uniform mixed with a 60's sensibility for the diminutive Berthe. Leah J. Loukas is responsible for the hair and wig design, reminding us of how the so-called "sexual revolution" of that decade came with big hair.
Vince Nappo presents a handsome, well-groomed and confident Bernard who clearly enjoys his role as a ladies' man and at least initially is proud of his ability to easily coordinate his three "fiancee's" comings and goings so that they think that each alone enjoys his attentions. Ryan Farley comes equipped with an array of at-first annoying quirks and ticks as the country rube Robert who quickly demonstrates a remarkable ingenuity and inventiveness in maintaining his friend's secrets. Farley's Robert slowly grows on the audience and one learns to admire and respect his ability to come up with split-second (and often side-splitting) excuses, as well as to remember to change the portrait whenever a different woman returns to the sitting room.
Denny Dillon, an esteemed comic actress, delivers Berthe's sarcasm and growing exhaustion quite well, though her accent tends to wander from French to German to indecipherable at times. Her small size effectively disguises the heft of her disdain to great comic effect.
This being a farce, the three actresses playing the stewardesses offer exaggerated performances of their respective characters, veering toward efficient stereotype particularly in the case of the Teutonic Gretchen and the sex-kitten Gabriella. Claire Brownell and Kathleen McElfresh, as Gretchen and Gabariella, respectively, are amusing nonetheless, although it does stretch the imagination to accept Gretchen's sudden attraction to the hapless Robert. Kelly D. Felthous plays the American stewardess Gloria as an accommodating blond bimbo who may be more crafty than she's willing to convey.
Farce is not everyone's cup of tea, with or without an underlying satirical theme as found in much of Moliere's plays. "Boeing Boeing" is essentially pure farce, with no hidden message or purpose other than to produce laughter and enjoyment. If one is looking for an evening that promises to be nothing more than funny and that recaptures some of the outlandish "swinging sixties" scenarios, then head for "Boeing Boeing" and the days when flying was seen as a romantic adventure and not the farce that it can sometimes seem today.
The production runs through February 5. Evening performances are weeknights (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday) at 7:30 p.m. and weekends (Friday and Saturday) at 8 p.m. Matinee performarnces are Sundays and selected Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m. For more information and to order tickets, call the Hartford Stage box office at 860.527.5151 or visit www.hartfordstage.org.
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