Acadia Repertory play ‘lite’ but smart ‘See How They Run’ cast game, vigorous

Philip King’s farce “See How They Run,” which opened this week at Acadia Repertory Theatre in Somesville, draws its title from a singsong children’s rhyme. But the script is more than just a treadmill of laugh lines. It’s fairly meaningless – that is, “lite” – but it’s also smart, which means that the show is an undeniably fun night of theater.

Under Ken Stack’s direction, it’s part high British snootiness and part Keystone Kops. The main plot involves a vicar, his sassy American wife, her old acting troupe buddy, the household maid and the village snoop. To pump up the action, King adds a bishop, a Russian intruder (the action is set back in the “Red Scare” days), and a hapless houseguest who doesn’t show up until late in the story and is duly lost until the close.

As if that weren’t enough, the name of the central couple in the play is Toop and they live in the vicarage of a town called Merton-Cum-Middlewick. The only thing missing here is a banana peel.

Fortunately, King’s script is smart enough that even sugary lines such as “Don’t bicker, vicar,” wiggle in without sounding flabby.

Stack has collected a game cast that vigorously leaps over fainted bodies and blithely walks straight into the storm of mistaken identities and swapped wardrobes. They do all this in a relatively small space fully and quaintly set up like a living room but with the ultimate job of being an obstacle course.

Bangor’s Robert Libbey reprises the role of Lionel Toop from the Ten Bucks Theater production of the show in January, and captures the very serious work of comedy in his performance. He knows the language will carry him, so he never strays into the temptation to overplay his lines or embellish them with silliness.

Cherie Willis, as Ida the maid, has some of the cleverest lines in the play and, even though her words are sometimes sacrificed by a muffly accent, her spitfire trickery is, in some ways, the most amusing of the evening.

Emma Gochberg, as the vicar’s wife, Penelope, is smart-alecky – and one wonders why the vicar might have been drawn to her in the first place. This conundrum, by the way, reappears in every rendition of this play because Penelope and

Clive, her former thespian friend, seem far better suited to one another than Penelope and her starchy husband.

Doug Meswarb, who plays Clive, detracts from an otherwise expert and elegant performance with a barking laugh that is both jarring and annoying. As with a handful of affectations crafted by others for this production, it stands out as a curiosity rather than an attribute.

Kimberly J. Forbes as the sniping Miss Skillon, Josh Chenard as the Russian, Michael S. Miller as the Bishop, Chris Korte as the visitor Humphrey, and Frank Beck in a cameo as a police sergeant help keep the action moving with spirit and spunk.

It is a sign of the show’s charm and chipperness that Wednesday night’s audience roiled with laughter. As summer theater goes, “See How They Run” did exactly what it should do: distract and delight.

Acadia Repertory Theatre will present “See How They Run” Tuesday-Sunday through Aug. 11 at the Masonic Hall in Somesville. For information, call 244-7260