ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS
***** (out of 5)
Festival Theatre, 2 hours, 35 minutes, one intermission. Ends Oct. 13.
By Richard Bean. Based on “The Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldoni. Songs by Grant Olding. Director: Chris Abraham.

Penny-Lynn Cookson
Special to The Lake Report

Love it or hate it? There’s no in-between on this one.

“One Man, Two Guvnors” is a ribald, rollicking, raucous, roaring hit. To dismiss it with disdain, as some have, is beyond chacun à sans goût — it is to miss the point.  

Its absurdity is the absurdity of life, of the human condition, to see our foibles and follies and to laugh, belly laughs, tears rolling down our cheeks at a shared theatrical event of pure comedic entertainment superbly delivered.

In 2011, the London National Theatre production directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring James Corden was wildly successful.

A year later, the play was on the West End and on Broadway, achieving wider acclaim and awards. And now, we have a superb Shaw production.

Richard Bean’s play is based on Carlo Goldoni’s “Il servitore di due padroni,” written in 1745 about a clever servant named Truffaldino who gets into difficulties trying to outsmart his two employers at the same time.  

Bean’s servant is Francis Henshall (an outstanding Peter Fernandes): awkward, deceitful, easily confused, dim but loyal and primarily interested in filling his copiously empty stomach. He is also Harlequin in a checked suit.

The story has its roots in the traditions of the Italian commedia dell’arte performances, beginning in the 16th century with charlatans hawking wares and vagabond actors playing stock characters in urban marketplaces.

These performances appealed to all levels of society and soon spread across Europe from the streets to the courts of the nobility and emperors.

Goldoni took these stock characters and made them recognizable social types regardless of place or time. His original plots had wit and humour relevant to social values.

Theatre was tied to reality, dramatic action controlled. Masks were abandoned but the masquerade continued.

We see these characters in Bean’s Brighton, U.K. It is 1963 and there’s a carousel of music on the Brighton Pier.

A skiffle band is playing. Isn’t that Ringo? John? Cilla Black? No horses, but a Vespa whizzes by on stage.

The characters are Pantalone, the “elderly” cuckolded husband who wishes to marry off his daughter against her will for his financial gain. This is middle-class Charlie Clench, well-played by Tom Rooney with a bad toupée.    

Pauline Clench (Jade Repeta) is a Columbine with an overheated libido for the Lover, an aspiring young actor named Alan (André Morin) who poses in foppish commedia dell’arte positions at every opportunity.  

Patrick Galligan is the Dottore, the hyper, narcissistic, long-winded lawyer in a wide pinstriped suit tossing out Latin phrases and making no sense.  

Scaramouche is the insufferable Stanley Stubbers, an upright, uptight, hot-tempered snob fond of the bottle and intrigue, wonderfully played by Martin Happer.

Kiera Sangster is a flirtatious and sexy Dolly, the bookkeeper and would-be amour of Francis, come-hithering with a beehive hairdo topped by an innocent bow.  

The double gender act of Roscoe/Rachel is fiercely played by Fiona Byrne, curiously looking like Charlie Chaplin. As the long-suffering waiter, Graeme Somerville is tasked with training a dottering, shaky new server named Alfie. 

Alfie is Matt Alfano, the epitome of Pierrot, the melancholy, white-haired, white-faced, defenceless servant with hanging arms in his oversized white jacket.

He is also the Lazzi, the comic acrobat who kept the scenes going at a ferocious pace as he tumbled downstairs, staggered upstairs and was continually bashed.

His was a technically brilliant performance that had the audience gasping and moaning with dread and laughing.

This show gave us commedia dell’arte traditions including audience participation, the importance of serving wine and fine food in silver dishes, greed, consumer fixations, loves lost and found, loneliness, murder and mayhem, cross identities, gender confusion, non-stop laughs, superb direction and marvellous production values. 

A winner on all counts.  

Penny-Lynn Cookson is an arts and culture historian, writer and lecturer living in Niagara-on-the-Lake.