Editorial
Front Page - Friday, January 14, 2011
UTC Speech and Theatre students to perform riotous bedroom farce
David Laprad
Patrick Sweetman is a UTC faculty member and the director of “The Ladies Man,” a rowdy bedroom farce the department will be performing in February. The cast will be composed entirely of students.
For some people, going to the theater is a cerebral experience. The more complex and challenging the material, the better they feel about buying a ticket. Others attend plays simply to be entertained. If they laugh, cry and enjoy a song or two, then their money was well spent.
The Speech and Theatre Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga next month will be aiming to appeal to both groups with its performance of “The Ladies Man,” a zany bedroom farce that should have audience members in stitches even as it explores the themes of fidelity and the disparity of power between the sexes.
Written by Charles Morey, “The Ladies Man” is loosely based on French playwright Georges Feydeau’s “Talleur pour Dames,” which translates as “Ladies Dressmaker.” Patrick Sweetman, UTC faculty member, is directing.
“Feydeau was known for his farces, almost all of which deal with perceived infidelity,” Sweetman says.
The misunderstandings and cases of mistaken identity soar to hilarious heights in “The Ladies Man,” in which a wife suspects her husband’s lack of performance in the boudoir is due to infidelity. Unable to admit his impotence to his beautiful young bride, the husband, Dr. Molineaux, lies, which only stokes his wife’s suspicions. A cast of characters interested only in their own selfish maneuverings intensifies the problems between the newlyweds.
Reviews of other productions of “The Ladies Man” have called the play “brilliant,” “a comic minefield” and “frothy fun.” The City Newspaper praised the second act as “pure gold.”
“The scene shifts from Molyneux’s apartment to an abandoned dressmaker’s shop, where all of the characters collide literally and figuratively. Things quickly devolve into broad physical comedy, bawdy double entendres, a series of increasingly bizarre misunderstandings, over-the-top reactions and a madcap chase sequence that features every one of the set’s five doors ... being put to brilliant use,” Eric Resnyak wrote.
When done correctly, farce demands machine-tooled artistry, which Sweetman promises to bring under his direction.
“It’s going to be a difficult show. Farce is all about timing. Someone walks through a door, sees something, slams the door, and then someone else comes in, so an actor has to be there the moment a word is said,” he says.
That said, the director is confident his cast, which is made up of students either majoring or minoring in speech and theatre, can pull it off.
“We have four men and four women, and they’re all dynamite. I could not have asked for a better group of people,” he says.
In spite of its naughty nature, Sweetman says “The Ladies Man” is essentially “PG.”
“This is a clean play. Although things are suggestive, there’s no sex, so you’re not going to see nudity on stage. And someone says [the “s” word] once, so it’s not like David Mamet, where every third word is an f-bomb,” Sweetman says.
While the director likes the farcical elements of “The Ladies Man,” he also appreciates its themes.
“If you look at Shakespeare’s comedies, they’re all about young people getting married. Will the right couples work out? And when they do, the play ends because no one cares about what happens the next day, when all the problems start.
“Feydeau starts ‘The Ladies Man’ the next day. His focus is on whether or not the marriage will survive. He creates an artificial world and uses exaggerated characters to deal with a serious theme,” he says.
While Morey carried over
the themes that infused Fey-deau’s work, he did update the language to allow for stronger female characters, Sweetman says. Feydeau wrote his farces in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when many women were dependent on men for support. The French playwright used this cultural dynamic to create comedic tension.
“Our views of women have changed since the early 20th century. In the original play, the women are very dependent on the men. In Morey’s version, they have their own ideas. But they still use the only tool they had at their disposal.
“At the time, many women didn’t own property or have jobs, so they had no control over money. This meant they had to control men, and the only means by which they were able to do that was sex. So that’s the game these women are playing. The rich doctor can’t take care of all of us, so who’s going to get him?
“At the same time, the men are repressed. They’d like nothing more than to give in to the women, but that would be improper,” Sweetman says.
While there’s a lot of going on beneath the surface of “The Ladies Man,” Sweetman says he hopes audience members take pleasure in the laughs.
“We have some great comic surprises in store for everyone. It’s going to be a fantastic confection.”
“The Ladies Man” will run Feb. 11, 12, 16, 17, 18 and 19. For show times and ticket prices, call 423-425-4269.
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