Theatre 40 of Beverly Hills opens their 2018-19 season with Norm Foster’s SCREWBALL COMEDY, a laugh fest about competing journalists chasing the same story in order to either get a job at a big city newspaper, or to keep an existing job at the same paper.

The year is 1938. The effects of Great Depression still lingers on. Mary Hayes (Kate Whitney) just lost her job as a perfumer (perfume saleswoman) at the local department store. Her real passion is to be a journalist. It’s been since her college days ten years before since she was last a reporter. Now pounding the pavement for a job, she tries to land a gig at the big city newspaper The Chronicle. Mary has an uphill climb, since the best journalists around tend to be men! Upon meeting the editor Bosco Godfrey (Daniel Leslie), she encounters Jeff Kincaid (Lane Compton), the paper’s best beat reporter. Bosco give Mary a challenge. He assigns her and Jeff to work as separate reporters to cover the wedding of Chauncey Diddle (Niko Boles) and Gloria Fontana (Jean Mackie). Chauncey is the son of Dolores Diddle (Sharron Shayne), the paper’s owner. Delores inherited the paper, as well as the rest of the family fortune, when her husband drowned after he fell off the family yacht while drunk (again) and for the final time! But this wedding has some suspicion connected to it all. It’s up to Mary and Jeff to grab this story by the horns, perhaps making it worthy for the front page, and to either give Mary her job, or to have Jeff keeping his!

This production is reminiscent to those wild, witty, and somewhat wacky comedies that the movie studios (such as RKO or Columbia Pictures) once churned out in the 1930’s and 40’s where it was usually a battle between the sexes that used plenty of wit, witticism, with a notion of romance thrown in for good measure! Unlike those features created some seventy plus years before, this play depicted on Theatre 40’s stage was written in the 21st century by a playwright based in Canada! That playwright, Norm Foster, uses the same form of comedy that was very commonplace during that period, even if some of the visual and verbal gags used are not necessarily “politically correct” in today’s landscape. However, this play takes place durning the time when men were men, women were women, and the humorous stunts were delivered in rapid fire action!

The cast that appear in this production, including Gail Johnston as Jonesy, Bosco’s “girl Friday”, George Villas as Peter Terwillinger, Deloris’ new beau, and David Hunt Stafford as Reginald, the Dilddle family butler, all get into the sprit of the play’s period. Howard Storm, who has directed a number of Theatre 40 shows of recent past, is back on helm to direct this work that is very comical and charming to boot!

With such period pieces comes period fashions and sets that go along with the action. Jeff G. Rack, Theatre 40’s residential set designer, creates a scene that fits the era, while Michele Young’s costuming also speaks for the times that gives the cast a chance to give it with all they’ve got!

SCREWBALL COMEDY’s title says it all! It’s the type of comedies that they just don’t make anymore. There are many reasons for that, but that doesn’t mean they still can’t create ‘em! The 1930’s may be long gone, but they aren’t forgotten! The style of comedy depicted is unique. It’s also very breezy where its happy conclusion is light, likable, and gay! (The 1930’s definition of “gay”, that is!)

Rich Borowy for Accessibly Live Offline
July 23, 2018