Metro Pulse/Backstage/The Foreigner

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What:
The Foreigner

When:
July 5, 12, 24, Aug. 1, 7:30 p.m.

Where:
Bijou Theatre Center, 803 Gay Street, produced by Cumberland Country Playhouse at the Bijou

Cost:
$18.50, $22.50, $24.50, includes $2 service charge. Call 522-0832 for tickets.

The Foreigner discovers what it means to be alienated

by Paige M. Travis

When you're from the South, you get used to being misjudged. People who have never known a Southerner or traveled to the South seem unafraid to share their unflattering preconceptions, like the notion that we marry our cousins, forego wearing shoes and don't know how to read—or worse. Some of these facts might be true in some cases, but they're certainly not the norm.

The South isn't alone in this plight. Every region or ethnicity has its own set of stereotypes to reckon with, and our challenge is to let go of these assumptions and take people at face value. It's a nice goal, but it might never happen. The Foreigner, by Larry Shue, is a good case study.

The play places two friends from England into Tilghman, Ga., a place far enough from Atlanta to still be considered rural. "Froggy" LeSueur (Richard Daniel) has come to the local Army base to run a program for the troops, and he's brought along pal Charlie Baker (Terry Schwab) to help him forget his troubled marriage. While Froggy stays on base, Charlie stays at the cozy home of Betty Meeks (Carol Irvin) with the other boarders—an engaged couple, the Rev. David Marshall Lee (Andrew Ross) and Catherine Simms (Sarah Hund), and her brother Ellard (Jason Ross).

Froggy has visited several times before. He adores Betty and her comfy house. But Charlie is less at ease. He acts like he never leaves his own home at all. He tells Froggy he is terrified of talking to people, and he would completely avoid it but for seeming rude. So Froggy tells Betty that Charlie "is foreign as the day is long;" he doesn't speak a word of English, and he just wants to be fed and left alone.

But Betty's fascination with "furreners" and their mysterious ways puts her in a kind of rapture over Charlie. She talks to him like he's a hearing-impaired two-year-old and regards his every behavior with complete amazement. The rest of the boarders, and David's friend Owen (Tom Angland), treat Charlie like he's a minor curiosity. Mostly, his silence annoys them. That's except for Ellard, who is a man of few words himself. Either mildly retarded or just a bit slow, Ellard enters every situation with slightly bumbling calm. Everyone assumes that Ellard is incompetent, but Charlie reveals to them that he isn't. They are treated alike, the foreigner and the handicapped. They are both treated like children who know nothing, when actually their approach to things is merely different.

The Foreigner is about belonging. Some characters don't seem to belong, but they end up fitting in just fine. And others are assumed to fit in, but they turn out to be unwelcome. Charlie is from England, but he is also another kind of foreigner: he feels like he doesn't fit in with society. His wife calls him "boring," and he's taken it to heart with a passion. But the same amount of energy he spent being completely anxious about social interaction, he eventually spends connecting with Betty, Catherine and Ellard. To some extent, Charlie perpetuates the lie by taking advantage of their ignorance, but he also helps them. "We're making each other alive and complete," he says. Betty gets her chance to experience something exotic; Catherine finds a confidant; and Ellard becomes an English teacher.

To tag The Foreigner as "the funniest comedy ever," as the program does, is a stretch. Betty's ignorance about foreign cultures is supposed to be hilarious, but I was frustrated by the perpetration of this stereotype. When Betty finds Charlie holding a juice glass on his head, she assumes it's a gesture from his native land. Oh, come on. Am I supposed to believe Betty's never read a book or magazine, or watched TV or movies that included at least one person from another country? This is a complaint with the playwright, not the cast, of course. They handle the farcical situations with expert timing and facial expressions. As Charlie begins to enjoy his own performance as the na�ve foreigner, the tabula rosa, joy shines on Schwab's face. Ellard takes to his role as Charlie's teacher with gusto. Their scenes together are exuberant.

As the "bad guys" of the play, Owen and David, are creepy and sinister. When their covert dealings with the Ku Klux Klan are revealed, their previously harmless characters become dangerous. They are Georgians, locals, who supposedly fit in, but when their true natures come out, they are no longer welcome among their own kind.

The actors don't rush their funniest lines and exchanges, which is nice. But at almost two-and-a-half hours, The Foreigner is long for a comedy. Director Brenda Sparks lets her talented actors take their time, but that sometimes seems too long. The set is ideal, which is par for the course with productions by Cumberland County Playhouse at the Bijou. Betty's house, a cross between a cabin and an old farmhouse, is cozy, and the thunderstorm effects created by lighting designer Scott Segar are very realistic.

The moral of The Foreigner is that people aren't always what they seem. This notion can either make you paranoid or comforted. We all have hidden fears and undiscovered talents. When you look at it that way, we're all in the same boat and not so foreign after all.