In 1942, Oxford’s Bodleian Library published a pamphlet called “Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain.“ The United States had entered World War II. Yanks were invading England prior to their going on to the Continent or not. Passing through or staying, they were in need of assistance for understanding that, as Oscar Wilde put it (or was it George Bernard Shaw?), England and America are two nations divided by the same language.
That was 77 years ago, and now—with Americans doing their damndest to figure out what Brexit is all about and how Teresa May is surviving—Dan March, James Millard, Matt Sheahan, and John Walton have written a two-act comedy called, straightforwardly enough, Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain. March, Millard and Sheahan do the acting, Walton directs.
In the intervening eight decades, the Bodleian publication has undoubtedly been ripe for spoofing, but, let’s face it, less so as time has passed. But perhaps even in 2019 a send-up treatment could provide a keg of laughs. If so, Messrs. March, Millard Sheahan, and Walton are apparently not the ones to do it.
They’ve imagined a series of revue-type routines that tickle the elusive funny bone only at scattered moments but are far more often strained. Furthermore, they count on the audience to join in, as the Brits might put it, the cheer. (One bit of relief: At no time does anyone say “cheerio” or “tally-ho.”)
Oh, yes, the servicemen urgently needing—and receiving—instructions in the 59E59 Theatres theater (there’s one sometimes spelling difference between them and us) are the audience. The actors constantly address the audience and, worse, insist on their standing at attention, giving their names and rank. Not to mention learning and executing the longtime English pastime, the Morris Dance. Incidentally, credit is due the players for not chiding those not playing along—this reviewer being among the (curmudgeonly?) hold-outs.
The action in Martin Thomas’ make-shift military classroom is led by Millard, playing the personable Lieutenant Shultz; March playing bombastic and somewhat dim-witted Colonel Atwood; and Sheahan playing fulminating Major Gibbons, an Englishman dispatched to help the possibly at-a-loss Americans.
Presumably lifting sections from the pamphlet, the authors have Colonel Atwood go to a blackboard where a map of England and Ireland is displayed to offer a quick geography lesson. They have Major Gibbons explain English money of the time (bobs, guineas, farthings, tuppences, thruppences, et cetera). They have the colonel and the major engage in a conversation where the weather is recommended as the best icebreaker. And for more first-act follies they get around to a couple other subjects.
The second-act begins with the performing trio wearing puppet outfits (Thomas also the costumer) as Nazis scheming to sow belligerence between the English and the Americans. The tiresome sequence is the work’s lowest point, and is followed by March, Millard and Sheahan reverting to their earlier characters dispensing further instructions at an event called Apple Day. During this deluded interlude, the audience gets to toss crushed balls of paper at Shultz and Gibbons who’ve undertaken a conflation of cricket and baseball. The unnecessarily extended turn is presided over by March as an English twit with a strange vocal habit.
On the way in to the caprice, Millard stands by the ticket taker so he can welcome patrons. He couldn’t be more personable at it. He remains the same likable fellow during the show, even when playing Major Gibbons’ mother. (This is while the major leaves to chase a cat that’s become a running gag.) March and Sheahan also put their best foot forward in this forced march, thereby doing what they can to enliven it. Their best may not be good enough, but that’s not their fault.
Or is it? After all, they’ve written the thing with director Walton. Indeed, they call themselves The Real MacGuffins and are established in their homeland as top-flight sketch writers. Watching them airing their combined senses of humor (humour?), an observer might wonder if it’s ever crossed their minds to compose a play wherein they give instructions on how Americans can begin to reconcile the difference between what the English find risible and what stateside spectators can be moved to giggle at. They might do as much either before or after concocting instructions on how those of us on this side of the pond can unravel the above-mentioned understanding-Brexit challenges.
Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain opened April 21, 2019, at 59E59 and runs through May 12. Tickets and information: 59e59.org
