Forceful Farce

Requiring witty wordplay, physical dexterity and split-second ensemble timing, farce may be the most difficult type of comedy to perform. At its best, it can also be the most entertaining.

Excellent farces continue in Ventura County this weekend, performed by a college and a community theater group. Both, considering the relative youth of most of the players, are surprisingly entertaining.

Dating to early this century, French playwright Georges Feydeaux’s “A Flea in Her Ear” (in a sparkling adaptation by Bennett Shaw) holds many of the requirements of a classic farce, among them mistaken identity, a volatile mixture of married couples and lovers, comic foreigners and slamming doors. Come to think of it, English playwright Peter Shaffer’s mid-’60s “Black Comedy” features the same elements.

The Feydeaux play, now at Cal Lutheran University under the direction of Michael Arndt, begins when Yvonne Chandel (Christa Knudsen) suspects her husband, Victor-Emmanuel (Nathan Black), of having an affair. She conspires to trap him in an assignation with a mysterious admirer and show up herself to catch him. High-jinks ensue, including a second act that may be one of the funniest pieces of material ever written. Or translated.

It takes place in the hotel where Victor-Emmanuel is supposed to meet his imaginary fan and ranks with the great hotel farces--”Room Service” and “The Ritz” coming immediately to mind.

Other principals include Frederik Hamel, Dana Shaw and Jeremy Nausin as members of the Chandel household; Dustin Polan as a jealous Spaniard and Janica Kaalikoski as his wife; Michael Martin as a doctor, the closest thing this play has to a non-comic character; Adam Martin as a German hotel guest; and Oliver Trimble, Sara Gravrock, Carissa Bennett, Nathan Silva and Nate Noir (a comic find) as members of the hotel staff.

Allowing for the fact that most of the actors are significantly younger than the characters they play, they do a generally fine job.

The scenic design, credited to Michael Roehr, is especially ambitious for a Cal Lutheran production, and well-executed. There’s some musette-style music played before and during the program; if that’s the contribution of Rick Rhodes (credited as composer and music supervisor), more power to him.

*

Set in ‘60s London (though with nothing resembling the over-broad “Austin Powers” decor or costuming), “Black Comedy” starts with mediocre and unsuccessful artist Brinsley Miller (Will Shupe) preparing to impress his fiancee’s hard-to-impress father. Carol (Kimberly Demmary) loves Brinsley, but he’s poor and not a professional, so Col. Melkett (Lee Altmar) is bound to object.

Brinsley has appropriated furniture from his far more successful neighbor, the effete (a trait that’s intrinsic to the comedy) Harold Gorrange (John Moskel), who’s away for the weekend. And, oh yes, Brinsley isn’t entirely honest about his relationship with former fiancee Clea (Jennifer Grande). Just as the colonel is set to arrive, a power failure plunges Brinsley’s apartment, the couple and visiting neighbor Miss Fernival (Teresa Secor) into darkness.

Well, not exactly. Shaffer’s brilliant conceit is to have the set dark while the apartment’s lights are supposed to be on, and brightly lighted during what’s supposed to be darkness. So the audience can see the actors stumbling around, tripping over one another and the furniture and not noticing when people who aren’t supposed to be there, are.

No more plot here; enough has been given away already. Suffice it to say that Shupe is one of the area’s best physical comics, and that--under the direction of Michael Jordan--pretty much everybody keeps things moving quickly and hilariously, including Aurick Canete and B.H. Weinstein in significant supporting roles.

Here, too, the stage set is particularly ambitious for the venue; credit Jordan, Shupe and Demmary.

DETAILS

“A Flea in Her Ear” continues Saturday at 8 p.m. and concludes Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Preus-Brandt Forum on the Cal Lutheran University campus, 60 W. Olsen Road in Thousand Oaks. Tickets are $8, free to Cal Lutheran students and staff. For reservations or further information, call 493-3151.

“Black Comedy” continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. through Nov. 21 at the Arts Council Center, 482 Greenmeadow Ave. (off Moorpark) in Thousand Oaks. Tickets to all performances are $10; $8, students and seniors. For reservations (recommended) or further information, call 381-2747.

Todd Everett can be reached at teverett@concentric.net.