Friends and Neighbors

Lend Me a Tenor is such a perfectly executed farce that it could practically serve as an object lesson. The script by Ken Ludwig has all of the classic ingredients – broad, archetypal characters, misunderstandings, schemes, the possibility that the whole thing could collapse at any given moment – and the direction from Patrick Spradlin is so tight and the pacing so relentless and breakneck that you hardly have time to breathe. Of course, you’ll also be laughing so hard along the way you might not be able to breathe anyway.

The setup, as is the case in so many farces, is simultaneously simply and complicated. An opera company in Ohio circa the 1930s is awaiting the arrival of Tito, the famed Italian tenor who they signed on to lead their production of Pagliacci. Nebbishy assistant Max (Nicholas Kory) is trying desperately to hold down the fort while awaiting the tardy tenor, keeping the director Saudners (Blake Lubinus) from blowing a gasket while also trying to impress his girlfriend (and Saunders’ daughter) Maggie (Sarah Larson). When Tito (Shane Keran) fjnally arrives with his tough-as-nails wife Maria (Shawna Sylvester), Max has come up with a scheme – he’ll drug Tito and volunteer to take his place (being an amateur Opera singer himself) and maybe finally impress Maggie enough so that she’ll agree to marry him.

Of course, things never go according to plan in a comedy like this, and when it looks like this particular plan has gone wrong in a particularly disastrous way, everybody finds themselves rushing to try and manage the potential fallout. The construction of this plot is particularly fun because each character has their own unique agenda, and nobody can figure out why all their attempts to fix things run head-on into each other. Not just Max, Saunders, Maggie, and the rest, but also Diana (Rachel Kline), the opera’s costar-cum-groupie who is desperate to get into Tito’s pants, a bellhop (James Erfurth) seemingly more interested in meeting the opera star than doing his own job, and Julia (Barb McColgan) another leader of the opera company whose passion for opera is matched only by her passion for Tito. All of the members of the ensemble are bouncing back and forth within Tim Leagjeld’s single-location hotel suite set, with all the crashing doors and hiding places you’d expect. Indeed, while a lot of the individual story beats are kind of predictable for anyone who has seen their share of sex farces on stage, it’s all executed so perfectly that you keep laughing anyway. There’s a moment when two actors in identical clown costumes are on opposite sides of a door that blew me away because of how equally impressive it was as a stage image and sight gag.

The actors all embody their characters perfectly. I particularly appreciated how Shane Keran made Tito a star who, while temperamental and pretentious, was also perfectly nice and likeable. In a show where everybody is their own worst enemy, you don’t want anyone to actively root against.  As Max, Nicholas Kory manages the tricky task of playing multiple layers of a man trying to prove himself while in disguise as a completely different person. Sarah Larson plays the part of the girlfriend who gets easily flustered and starstruck well, and her scene with Diana late in the play when they’re both convinced they just slept with Tito is a highlight. Shawna Sylvester doesn’t get as much to do, but she’s still a welcome presence as the much-bothered wife who still can’t help but love the big idiot.

Of course, everything ends up tied together by the end, and it culminates in probably the most unique curtain call I’ve ever seen – a full-on speedrun of the show. It makes you appreciate just how much energy and precision went into the show even more. It’s often hard to appreciate just how much work goes into making people laugh.

LEND ME A TENOR plays through September 12th at the Chalberg Theatre at Central Lakes College