Madcap comedy

By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

It takes about three minutes into the first scene of "Don't Dress For Dinner," the upcoming mainstage production at the Salina Community Theatre, for the first lie to be told.

And just about as quick for the slamming of doors and racing up a staircase to start in playwright Marc Camoletti's frenetic screwball comedy.

"Not only is it physically fun, but the dialogue itself, and the speed of the dialogue, are ... just fun to mold and play with," said director John Henningsen, the theater's director of education.

"Don't Dress for Dinner" ended a six-month run in April at Chicago's Royal George Theatre, where it starred Jeffrey Donovan (Michael Weston of the TV program "Burn Notice") as Bernard.

Bernard is a philandering husband who arranges a weekend tryst with his mistress when his wife, Jacqueline, decides to go to visit her mother for a few days. Bernard's bachelor pal Robert, just returned from Hong Kong, becomes Bernard's alibi.

Plans go awry when Jacqueline becomes wise to the ploy; her husband is cheating and using Robert as a cover. She cancels her visit to her mother because, as becomes clear, Robert is her lover.

"Everyone in the room is trying to cover up something from everyone else," Henningsen said. "It starts to snowball and just starts to go faster and faster; it gets more intense and really funny."

The SCT cast is led by Alex Lankhorst as Bernard. He partners with Robert, played by Gary Demuth, one of Lankhorst's real-life best friends.

For Lankhorst, who's known primarily to local theater audiences for his leading roles in musicals, doing a stage comedy is a welcome change of pace.

"I love doing comedy when I can," Lankhorst said. "I get to demonstrate some of my acting skills. Sometimes doing musicals it's more about music than the acting."

There's also a lot of slapstick involved -- everything from face-slapping to staging chases across the set. And lots of costume changes, as part of a running gag about Bernard ruining his shirts.

Lankhorst and Demuth met about 15 years ago when they both began performing at the community theater. Together in "Don't Dress for Dinner," they take on the personality of a buddy comedy, like the old films of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis or Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

"We've done musicals and Shakespeare together, but we've not been in a play having that interaction, where we play best friends," Lankhorst said. "It's a real fun experience for both of us."

For Henningsen, the play is bringing together some of his own history. He had friends who worked on costumes for the Royal George production. He saw the show in Chicago and brought some of the ideas from that set to the Salina stage. Henningsen also worked props for a production of "Don't Dress for Dinner" at the Metropolis Performing Arts Center in Arlington Heights, Ill.

"I have a long relationship with this show," Henningsen said.

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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fan says....
FYI, In Chicago, Jeffrey Donovan did not play Bernard, he played Robert.
10/16/2009

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