Young lovers, old fools, members of high society hiding behind couches and curtains—who doesn’t enjoy a breezy farce, or comedy of manners, now and then? But while the pleasures of such fare, even slighter examples, may be eternal, modern productions require a particular dexterity on the part of directors and actors. Irish Repertory Theatre’s new staging of Don Boucicault’s London Assurance would seem to have a sure guide in the company’s co-founder and artistic director, Charlotte Moore, who in the last two seasons alone has helmed gorgeous revivals of works ranging from the quirky musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever to Sean O’Casey’s searing, tragicomic The Plough and the Stars. The cast that Moore has assembled for Assurance, alas, presents more of a mixed bag.
First presented at Covent Garden in 1841, Assurance marked the professional playwriting debut of the Dublin-born Boucicault, an actor who had just entered his 20s at the time. Set in London and Gloucestershire, it follows the foibles of the pompous, vain Sir Harcourt Courtly, a man of a certain age—40, he insists, though an old acquaintance protests he’s off by more than two decades—about to acquire the hand of the beautiful, 18-year-old Grace Harkaway, who must marry the old coot to acquire her late father’s fortune. Complications arise when Sir Harcourt travels to the country to meet his blushing bride-to-be, whose uncle, Max, has also been persuaded to invite Dazzle, an impish interloper who finagled his way into the Harcourt home after a night of carousing with the master’s son, Charles.
Dazzle brings Charles, along with Sir Harcourt’s sly valet, Cool; Charles naturally falls for Grace at first sight, knowing nothing of her sorry fate, and the madness begins, with identities hidden and faked and additional characters contributing their own shenanigans. We meet Grace’s sharp-witted maid, Pert; a nosy lawyer, Mark Meddle; and the brilliantly named Lady Gay Spanker, a spirited equestrienne married to Adolphus Spanker, who appears even older and more inept than Sir Harcourt.
If the more seasoned characters in Assurance can seem less self-aware—through much of the play, at least—the actors playing them deliver some of the most confident and consistently entertaining performances. Colin McPhillamy’s Sir Harcourt is, predictably, an exquisite buffoon, preening and plodding as the aging dandy alternately boasts of his enduring attributes and struggles to keep up with the others, including the only slightly younger but much more grounded Max (a robust, endearing Brian Keane). Robert Zukerman’s sweetly droll Augustus is a fine foil to Rachel Pickup’s zesty Lady Gay.
The play’s ingénues seem less, well, assured. As Grace, the elegant Caroline Strang looks lovely in Sara Jean Tosetti’s scrumptious, period-perfect costumes, but her proper British accent is self-conscious enough to suggest Eliza Doolittle at the Ascot races, and she manages little chemistry with Ian Holcomb’s rangy, boyish Charles. Elliot Joseph’s too-cool Cool could have been lifted out of a bromance flick, and Craig Wesley Divino’s turn as Dazzle, though more sophisticated, teeters on mugging—as does Evan Zes’s as Meddle; Zes raises his eyebrows so often and with such zeal I began to worry he would get a headache from all the effort.
Meg Hennessy, so winning in Irish Rep’s recent O’Casey Cycle, brings a more reserved sense of mischief to the clever Pert. Scenic designer James Noone also deserves praise for his handsome, rotating set, which takes us from a tidy ante-room to a lush lawn to a beautifully furnished and lit (by Michael Gottlieb) drawing-room, often a key location in comedies of this sort. This production’s shortcomings notwithstanding, and its charms duly considered, it’s not a bad place to spend a chilly evening.
