TOM TITUS -- THEATER REVIEW

Picture a Moliere comedy performed with all the stops out by the Marx

Brothers on a caffeine overload and you’ve got a pretty close

approximation of “Scapino,” the current production at Vanguard University

in Costa Mesa.

“Scapino,” adapted from Moliere’s “Scapin” by Frank Dunlop and Jim

Dale in the 1960s, has its roots in the commedia dell’arte style of the

1600s. What bubbles to the surface in director Mitch Teemley’s Vanguard

production is beyond wild and crazy.

Already the epitome of farcical theater, “Scapino” receives a few

extra helpings of physical comedy from Teemley and his inventive Vanguard

troupe, which takes the Italian theme of the show and runs with it. The

college’s Lyceum Theater becomes a loud and boisterous Italian

restaurant, where the overbearing head waitress (Bonnie Abraham) and her

servile crew pass out bread and take imaginary orders before the stage

lights come up.

Once the show gets under way, the stage belongs to Sunny Peabody in

the title role of a mischievous, mercenary servant who not only

physically resembles a youthful Jim Carrey but achieves, and often

surpasses, Carrey’s level of inspired wackiness. This same student, who

staged the brilliantly riveting “Hamlet” last year, takes a 180-degree

turn to deliver a seminar in farcical theater.

Peabody’s Scapino is recruited to remedy the romantic dilemma of his

master, Octavio (nerdily enacted by Adam Eugene Hurst) and, while he’s at

it, to do likewise for another similarly inflicted fellow (a pugnacious

Brandon Tyra). And again, while he’s at it, why not deflate a pair of

stuffed shirts just for the pure heck of it?

With an enthusiastic assist from his clever comrade (an energetic

Christa Jenewein), Scapino targets the old maidish Giacinta (Emily Rose)

and the pompous Geronte (Tim Larson), particularly Geronte, who’s stuffed

in a sack and repeatedly beaten to a pulp with a sausage.

Misty Groseth and Heaven Joy Peabody portray the young ladies waiting

for Scapino to set things right, but their waiting also is part of the

fun -- especially Heaven Peabody’s sensuous Gypsy characterization. Suzee

Adams gets in a few choice comic licks as a street bum scooping up the

leftover goodies, while Ronni Hamilton adds a confused, displaced nurse

to the mixture.

The small thrust stage of Vanguard’s Lyceum Theater is magnified by

myriad steps and canal effects from set designer Tim Mueller. Yes, this

is Naples, not Venice, but that’s no reason not to have a working gondola

in this frenetic farce, which also borrows from “Gilligan’s Island” and

“Airplane,” among other popular sources.

Vanguard’s “Scapino” goes the extra comic mile with ample audience

involvement and inspired slapstick, the lion’s share of which is fired at

a machine gun pace by Sunny Peabody. This is a young man destined for big

things in the business if he so chooses.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

WHAT: “Scapino”

WHERE: Vanguard University, 55 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, and 8 p.m. April 20.

COST: $10

PHONE : (714) 668-6145