by Geoff Hoff~

Alan Ayckbourn has written more plays than many of us have seen in our lives, some 74 full length ones at last count, not to mention a one-act, plays for children, screenplays, scripts for television and radio, sketches for reviews and at least one book. He loves playing with setting. In Norman Conquests, the events of a single weekend are seen from three perspectives in three rooms in the same house. In Absurd Person Singular, three different Christmases are celebrated by the same group of people in three very different kitchens. Bedroom Farce, now playing at the Odyssey, takes place in three distinct bedrooms in Surrey County in England, during the course of one night, where three very different couples are mostly adversely affected by a fourth, very clueless, couple.

Ernest and Delia are quintessentially British, older, settled, middle class, and are on their way to their anniversary dinner, but worried about their son Trevor and his wife Susannah. Delia laments the fact that they weren’t good parents to Trevor. “You did nothing and I tried to make up for it and that’s why he is the way he is today.”

Malcolm and Kate are a young, sweet, very much in love couple just starting in their first flat together. Malcolm fancies himself a handy-man but hasn’t the least ability. They’re having a house warming party and he is disturbed when he finds out that she has invited both Trevor and Susannah whose violent arguing has ruined many evenings, it seems.

And finally, Nick and Jan. He threw his back out putting on his socks, and she used to live with Trevor and can’t understand what he sees in Susannah, nor can she admit she still has a thing for him. They are an upwardly mobile couple, he’s waiting for a business call from America, after all. They love each other but you get the sense they don’t have a lot of sex or anything. They were invited to the house warming party and Jan is still going, knowing that Trevor and Susannah will be there, even though Nick is flat on his back in bed.

Bedroom Farce isn’t a farce, really, the farce referred to is the bedroom itself, where all our farcical insecurities and foibles hang out. There are many themes explored in the play, mostly having to do with coupling in some sense; love, sex, marriage, commitment, boredom, even. “Do you get bored with me?” Malcolm asks Kate. “No! No. Not often.” Everyone’s varying relationship to relationship is brought out by and made more clear by it’s proximity to the volatile relationship between Trevor and Susannah.

This production of Bedroom Farce is good, entertaining, but not necessarily inspired. The set, by Darcy Provost, gets the point across, of the three different stations in life the three different couples have reached. Direction by Ron Bottitta is straight forward. Costumes, by Kathryn Poppen, are quite good; who each character is becomes obvious the moment you see them. Lighting, by Kathi O’Donohue, is also good, keeping each bedroom distinct when we are to focus on it, but never letting us forget the other two are there.

The cast is mostly good, although it is a shame that the two weakest actors are in the two most pivotal roles. The stand out is Maggie Peach as Delia, Trevor’s mother, who is perfect as the British matron who soldiers on no mater what the circumstances. Robert Mandan is also good as her bumbling, slightly put-upon husband Ernest. Jamie Donovan is charming as the very sexy but fumble-fingered Malcom. Kate Hollinshead is equally charming as his earnest, bubbly, completely lovingly average girlfriend. Scott Roberts is Nick, who is a complete baby when it comes to pain, but a completely stiff-upper-lipped Britain when it comes to relationships. Ann Noble as his wife Jan is good but doesn’t quite pull off the necessary frustration of being married to such a British man.

Regina Peluso as Susannah, unfortunately, focuses almost entirely on hysterics and misses the comic nuances of this very selfish, neurotic woman, and Anthony Michael Jones as Trevor is appropriately clueless, but plays it with a conscious attempt at charm that falls a bit shy of any reality. The character is obviously written to have a good heart despite his shortcomings, which is why everyone likes and puts up with him, but here it is all presented as nonchalant bemusement and it isn’t clear why anyone wouldn’t simply put this Trevor out on the street and let him fend for himself.

Bedroom Farce is performed Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm through September 26, 2010. (Sunday 8/22 and 9/26 at 7 pm only.)

The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles 90025, one block north of Olympic.

Ticket prices: $25.00 Thursdays through Fridays, 30.00 Saturdays and Sundays. Seniors $5.00 off on Sundays. Students, Equity/SAG/AFTRA with ID $15.oo on Fridays.

Reservations online at www.OdysseyTheatre.com or by phone at (310) 477-2055.