[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of “Run for Your Wife,” written by Ray Cooney, directed by Sherman Wayne, and running through May 7 at Theatre Palisades.
I love trips to the theatre at Pacific Palisades. It’s such a beautiful part of L.A. Lots of great restaurants too!! So I’m more than happy to make the trek from the Valley to the lovely Theatre Palisades, this time for the classic English farce, “Run for Your Wife.”
“Run for Your Wife” is a hilarious English play written in the 80s. John, a London Taxi driver is a happily married man. Twice over. Concurrently. Which is obviously a bit of a problem for most people. But John has a system. He is organised and disciplined and, so far, for years now, it has worked. Until he gets a concussion after thwarting a mugging and wakes up in the hospital with two current addresses on file. One in Wimbledon with wife number one, and the other in Streatham with wife number two. He has also piqued the interest of two police officers called in by the hospital because of the nature of John’s injuries and they are very, very curious.
So John has to figure out how to get away with being out all night for one wife and late home for another. Explain his head injury, the policemen at his door, and the fact that his first wife now has his second wife’s phone number….it gets very complicated. There is another added complication of his best friend knowing nothing about his two wives and now being pulled into the drama to pose as his gay lover…as if that could ever be a solution to all his problems.
It’s a caper comedy of errors. Slightly dated, but affectionately so, with plenty of opportunity for great characters, physical comedy and for the right actor to slowly dissolve into a resigned and sticky mess for us all to enjoy.
This play is very well done. Theatre Palisades has assembled the perfect cast of actors to do their utmost with the English accents and to playfully frolic through this classic farce with no apologies and with fast, furious fun.
You really can only do this play service if you go at it at full tilt. And they do. Brilliantly! And I’m English, so I really should know if they pulled it off!!!
They were lucky enough to cast an actual Brit, Christopher Aruffo, in the lead role of John. He happily sets the level of comedy at high, and the rest of the really wonderful cast easily meets it.
I loved this play! Funny, warmly nostalgic, and unabashedly kitsch. I’m not sure you could spend a better couple of hours anywhere than at Theatre Palisades watching the truly delightful “Run For Your Wife.”
Take a little vacation in Pacific Palisades and watch an English farce, celebrate King Charles II’s coronation!! Charles does love a laugh!!!
Tickets:
When:
Running through May 7.
Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, Sundays at 2PM
Where:
Theatre Palisades
941 Temescal Canyon Rd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
The Cast and Team:
Christopher Aruffo leads the cast as John (TedX Talk on dialects using cognitive research); Jill Tenney as Mary (Broadway World Best Supporting Actress nominee for Morgan Wixson’s “And Then There Were None”); Wendy Taubin as Barbara (Previously seen at TP as Sonia in “Vania, Sonia, Masha and Spike”); Justin Drew as Stanley (TP debut. Previously seen as Petruchio in “The Taming of the Shrew” at Theatre Phoenix); Randy Oppenheimer as Sgt. Troughton (Previously seen at TP in “Lend Me A Tenor”); Adriana Bodner as Newspaper Reporter; Richard Conolly as Porterhouse (Previously seen at TP in “Play On!”); Michael Anthony Nozzi as Bobby (Previously seen at TP as Henry The Old Actor in “The Fantasticks.”)
Director: Sherman Wayne
Producer: Martha Hunter and Laura Goldstein
Stage Manager: Adriana Bodner
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