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Photos Ann Wood
Stephen Russell continues to show he is equally skilled on both sides of the footlights. He is directing Steve Martin’s “The Underpants” for The Academy of Performing Arts in Orleans. |
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Shawn O’Neil, as Theo in “The Underpants,” is outraged by his wife (Cassie Hultin as Louise) and the unfortunate incident in which her undies were revealed for all to see. |
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Uncovering Steve Martin’s ‘Underpants’
Stephen Russell stages the
new sex farce in Orleans
Ann Wood
Banner Staff
It’s 1910 Germany and all Louise Maske wants to do is see the King. But when the young housewife stands on a bench to try and get a better look, her underpants fall down around her ankles — which is not something her very proper government clerk husband finds the least bit amusing. Especially when, after a year of not being able to rent a room in their house, men enamored by the glimpse of underwear suddenly appear to see it.
This premise sets the stage for “The Underpants,” a sex farce by Steve Martin that opens at 8 p.m. Friday at The Academy of Performing Arts, 120 Main St., Orleans. It will continue through the weekend with an 8 p.m. performance Saturday and 2 p.m. matinee Sunday and will then run at 8 pm Thursday through Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through January 30. Tickets are $16, $14 for WGBH members, and can be purchased by calling (508) 255-1963.
The play opens, says director and Wellfleet resident Stephen Russell, with Louise’s husband Theo (Shawn O’Neil) berating Louise (Cassie Hultin) about letting such an improper thing happen.
“It’s the stuff of comedy, isn’t it,” Russell says about the story line. “The play really kicks off immediately with despair and anxiety over the incident.”
Although “The Underpants” is an adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s play “Die Hose” — which was shunned in the pre-World War II era for being immoral — Russell says it’s got the Martin touch.
“It’s very funny. And Steve Martin even sort of gives us the theme of the play in one of Theo’s early lines, which is, ‘Don’t underestimate the power of a glimpse of lingerie,’” says Russell.
And powerful underwear it is. It has Frank Versato, a poet looking for his muse via undergarments, and Benjamin Cohen, a closet Jew who fell in love once he saw the underpants, clamoring to rent that room.
Russell calls these two characters “wonderful, wonderful Steve Martin creations.” And he has cast actors in these roles that he knows well — Rick McKey, who he’s worked with frequently, and Rob Anderson, who he hasn’t worked with in a decade.
“[Anderson’s] one of those actors you just point at the stage and let him go and marvel at what comes out. It’s really cool,” Russell says.
Then there’s the nossy upstairs neighbor Gertrude, played by M.C. Kay.
“She’s another natural comedian. She just makes me laugh all the time,” he says.
Shawn O’Neil, who plays Theo, was in the play Russell directed at The Academy last winter, Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.”
“He was my Einstein. He’s been in the last couple of things I’ve done. I just love working with him. He’s a wonderfully creative fellow,” Russell says. Gary Mitchell, whom Russell worked with in “The Dresser,” rounds out the seven-character cast. “He’s the mysterious character that shows up at the end.”
The play opened two years ago and was a hit Off-Broadway, according to The New York Times. Because it’s so new, Russell, who heard of the play just last summer, worried the small theater wouldn’t be able to get permission to stage it.
“We were going to be traveling this summer and I was researching theaters and … the San Antonio Theater Company was just finishing up [‘The Underpants’] a week before we got there,” he says. “We were a little bit concerned that we might not get permission [to produce it]. You know, they like to give it to the bigger theaters first before they give it to the little guys. But we got it.”
One of the best things about Steve Martin plays is that they are full of surprises.
“[There’s] one really fun one at the end, of course. It really is a classic sex farce in a lot of ways and to find one [set] in Germany in 1910 is just kind of delightfully odd,” Russell says. “But in some ways the play uses that atmosphere of oppression to heighten the tension more. [In researching the period] it’s hard not to look at 1910 and not see what’s coming down the road.”
Judging from the sound it, “The Underpants” is a play that’s going to show in many theaters, on many roads.
“It’s starting to break on the regional theater circuit this year. No one that I know in the Eastern Massachusetts area has done it just yet,” Russell says.
Still, he hesitates in calling it a regional premiere — if he says that, he figures some theater will come out of the woodwork and claim it premiered the play first. But there’s one thing we know for sure, Russell is the first guy on Cape to show off his “Underpants.”
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In the Arts
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Jan 6th, 2005