Ten Bucks ‘Dinner’ really satisfies ‘Witness’ at Grand should pick up pace

For many of us, winter is no laughing matter. That’s why Ten Bucks Theatre Company has made an annual tradition out of programming a comedy in the dead of the coldest days of the season. Turns out, Ten Bucks has a particular skill for getting past our parkas and alpaca sweaters to tickle our funny bones.

This year’s “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” which runs through Feb. 4, upholds the tradition. On opening night, the audience roared with laughter at the sex farce that puts three couples in awkward circumstances because of extramarital affairs and unexpected switch-a-roos in schedules.

Marc Camoletti wrote the play originally in French under the title “Pajamas for Six,” and Robin Hawdon adapted it as a British sex farce under the current name. This is the kind of broad comedy you expect to see actor Dominick Varney perform in – he could easily play any of the roles. Instead Varney has turned in his actor’s hat for the director’s horn, and proves it doesn’t seem to matter which side of the stage he’s on, the guy knows comic moments, and he pulls them out of this cast.

The premise of the plot is that Bernard plans a tryst with an actress while his wife, Jacqueline, goes to visit her mother. His alibi is that their friend Robert is coming for a “guys weekend.” When Jacqueline learns this – her secret is that she’s having an affair with Robert – she decides to visit Mom another time. Confusion reigns when a feisty cook named Suzette and Bernard’s lover named Suzanne show up. The night’s dinner party becomes a wacky circus of infidelities and mistaken identities.

The ensemble actors – Arthur Morison, Hillary Roberts, Christopher Franklin, Elaine DiFalco Daugherty, Starsha Schiller and Patrick Gleason – are entirely adept at the breakneck timing, physical humor and rapid line delivery necessary to make this show sing. They may get a little bungled on accents, and some moments overshoot the humor. But this is a hilarious show with a cast that weaves a tangled web without choking any of the fun.

“Witness for the Prosecution,” playing through Feb. 4 at The Grand in Ellsworth, weaves a tangled web of deception, too – this one Agatha Christie-style. As with Ten Bucks, the Grand has offered programming this time of year to save community actors and audiences from the winter blues. Typically, Dame Christie’s shows have been programmed as the closer for the summer season at Acadia Repertory Theatre in Somesville. Mounting one of her shows this time of year – and with nonprofessional actors – was a risk. On other hand, who doesn’t love a Christie whodunit? Director Ken Stack, who is also artistic director at Acadia Rep, knows this material as if he had cheat sheets scribbled permanently on his palms.

“Witness” is a somewhat serious play marked by British wit and understatement, and Stack has had good fortune staging such works on his smaller, quainter stage in Somesville. But the Grand seemed to swallow up this community ensemble. Christie’s plots require careful pacing and eloquence, a sharp sense of word play and a powerful dose of intrigue. After all, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton starred in Billy Wilder’s 1957 film adaptation. A work this complicated needs that kind of sharp edge, and the Grand production – for all its spooky moodiness – doesn’t have it.

It could have been opening night sluggishness, but when I saw the show, it ran three hours and the cast seemed to be moving in slow motion trying to find lines and locations. The handsome set, which alternates between a barrister’s chambers and a courtroom, is so cramped it forced actors to step awkwardly around furniture or between a tiered floor and the stage.

Several of the performers – Bernard Hope as Carter, Jim Pendergist as Sir Wilfred, James A. Pyduck as the inspector and Michael Weinstein as the judge – have exactly the right imaginative sense of their characters, and I suspect that by the end of the first weekend, the pace picked up. But on opening night, the audience made more of a scene with its popcorn and sodas than the actors with their characters. If you’re planning to attend this show, wait until Saturday or Sunday. The word on the street is that the pace has already picked up.

Stack has been directing massive community productions in the area for 25 years and said Friday night that “Witness” would be his last for a while, including at Acadia Rep, which he is leasing this summer to the directorial leadership of actor Cheryl Willis and her husband, Andrew Mayer, a sound designer. Both have worked at Acadia Rep in the past.

Stack plans to dedicate more time to his family and to developing a drama program with the New England School of Communications and Husson College in Bangor. Last year’s musical “The Full Monty,” which Stack directed, was an unparalleled success theatrically for Ellsworth. “Witness” may not have the punch of that blue-collar morality tale, but a Christie play is an apt send-off to one of the area’s most reliable theater artists whose talents are no mystery to local audiences.

And the good news: In March at The Grand, Dominick Varney will step in to direct “Once Upon a Mattress,” the first musical during Stack’s sabbatical.

Ten Bucks Theatre Company will present “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” at 8 p.m. Feb. 1-3, and 2 p.m. Feb 4 in Brewer Middle School Auditorium at 5 Somerset St. For information, call 884-1030, or visit www.TenBucksTheatre.com. “Witness for the Prosecution” will be performed at 7 p.m. Feb. 2-3, and 2 p.m. Feb. 4 at The Grand in Ellsworth. For information, call 667-9500, or visit www.grandonline.org.