Metro Pulse/Backstage/The Real Inspector Hound

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What:
The Real Inspector Hound

When:
Theatre Central, 316 Gay Street

Where:
Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m. through May 3

Cost:
$5/$10. Call 936-2291 for more info.

Theatre Central's new show uses TC's old formula with mixed success

by Paige M. Travis

Tom Stoppard is funny. I present this statement as an indisputable fact, at least in the context of my taste in theater and the plays of his I've seen. Theatre Central is known for its choice in funny plays. Case in point: their production of several of Christopher Durang's short plays that were in equal parts bizarre and hilarious. This kind of bawdy slapstick is perfect for director Mark Moffett, who encourages his actors to talk as fast as they possibly can and act weird when the script allows (and maybe even when it doesn't).

The Real Inspector Hound is Stoppard's jab at the Agatha Christie-type murder mysteries that take place in big spooky houses where there's a murderer on the loose and every character has something to hide. Stoppard must have reviewed his share of these plays when he was a drama critic in the early '60s and felt the need to get his satirical revenge. He also takes some stabs at the critics themselves.

The set-up of Inspector Hound is that two critics are present to review Murder at Muldoon Manor, the play we are also watching. Birdboot (Gary Mullins) and Moon (David Eilart) are intensely engrossed in their own inner worlds while they take self-indulgently verbose notes for their review. Moon is obsessed with Higgs, the reviewer he is standing in for that night. Birdboot is smitten with an actress in the play.

Murder at Muldoon Manor is a stinker of a play, and the actors reveal that fact through wooden expressions and/or histrionic, soap opera behavior. Only, it takes a really skilled actor to act badly without just being bad.

The line is blurry here, not having seen most of these actors in other plays. Mrs. Drudge (Wanda Huttner) is the manor's housekeeper. She delivers her best line in the second act as she answers the phone with a chipper "Thirty minutes later!" Birdboot's fancy is for Lady Cynthia Muldoon (Jennifer Decker), whose husband fell off a cliff years ago and was never seen again. The manor's two houseguests are Magnus Muldoon (Jack Wicker), the Major's crippled half-brother, and Cynthia's young friend Felicity Cunningham (Lee McCord, who must have been told to move his mouth as little as possible when saying his lines). One Simon Gascoyne (Josh Bates) shows up just as an announcement is made over the radio about a madman on the loose being spotted near the manor. When Inspector Hound (Bill Householder) appears, they're all saved. Or are they? (Insert menacing noise from above.)

Mullins and Eilart do a great job as Birdboot and Moon. They are passionately self-absorbed and hilarious as they alternately reveal and disguise their deepest desires (to seduce an actress and kill his co-critic, respectively). They're also completely sure, at least in the first act, who the murderer is. Huttner's Mrs. Drudge is a bit crazy, but so would you be if you lived in a house with these people. Decker is engagingly dramatic as the widow Muldoon who is in love with Simon Gascoyne. Bates is befuddled (which makes sense later) and charming. Wicker's part isn't very big, but he operates his wheelchair with dexterity.

The Real Inspector Hound has some surprises and a lot of laughs (both from the text and the physical humor supplied by the actors), but it's not as satisfying as I imagine it could be. What kept me from being completely frustrated by the production of the play was my prior experience with Theatre Central. I know what to expect: minimal set design, some technical glitches here and there, lines delivered at a breakneck pace and, if the play dictates, inconsistent, badly done accents. Why do theater companies continue to allow or even encourage actors to proceed through rehearsals and performances with accents that are so terribly distracting and irritating? Since the play doesn't require the actors to have accents, the director shouldn't insist on it. They already changed the script for the benefit of humor—Lee McCord (a broadly built man) plays Felicity Cunningham dressed in a tennis outfit stuffed with huge breasts—why not adapt the production for the sake of the more important goals of consistency and comprehensibility? (My new pet peeve may be cross-dressing actors with enormous fake breasts. This is Stoppard, not In Living Color.)

Theatre Central's new home at 316 Gay Street (across from Regas Restaurant) presents more challenges than its previous, roomier space on Market Square. In the case of Inspector Hound, in which the audience of the play served as the audience in the play, our being right inside the stage area was appropriate. The seating might have to be rearranged for future productions.

Or maybe not. Theatre Central is always a surprise, even when you think you know what to expect. That's the charm, but also sometimes the maddening thing about Mark Moffett's outfit. Low-budget theater can be so well done, especially in Knoxville where there's so little money for the non-profit arts and a dedicated but still-small audience for any theater at all. Sometimes I wish Theatre Central would challenge its audience and its actors by offering something more than just speed comedy.