Two Views of "The Explorers Club"
| By Paulanne Simmons and By Lucy Komisar
***
"The Explorers Club" takes us on a hilarious journey By Paulanne Simmons
The Explorers Club Donvale Werle’s set for Nell Benjamin’s new comedy, “The Explorers Club,” is a lovingly recreated Victorian men’s club, complete with a well-stocked bar, fussy 19th century furniture and numerous hunting trophies. This is a realm where no women dare enter. So when the club’s acting president, the botanist Lucius Fretway (Lorenzo Pisoni), proposes that Phyllida Spotte-Hume (Jennifer Westfeldt) become the newest member, the other members have serious reservations, despite the fact that Spotte-Hume has discovered a new tribe of people, and brought back a native with a long name, shortened to Luigi (Carson Elrod), as proof.
These members include herpetologist Professor Cope (Brian Avers), who is obsessed with snakes; zoologist Professor Walling (Steven Boyer), who has a serious relationship with a caged guinea pig; and Professor Sloane (John McMartin) an “archo-theologist” who spouts anti-feminist philosophy and believes the Irish are the lost tribes of Israel. The situation is further complicated when Luigi, who has a strange way of greeting people, is presented to the Queen and angers Her Majesty and her government; Lucius and the recently returned club president, Harry Percy (David Furr), a man who believes he has discovered the East Pole, vie for Phyllida Spotte-Hume’s attentions; and Professor Sloane antagonizes the Irish by informing them that they all need to go back to Palestine. The Explorers Club, under the direction of Marc Bruni is a fast-paced farce, well-written and brilliantly performed. Jennifer Westfeldt stands out as the only female character (she plays both Phyllida Spotte-Hume and her sister, Countess Glamorgan). Furr is excellent as the swaggering Harry Percy, as is Pisoni as the bumbling, earnest and lovesick Lucius. Brian Avers, Steven Boyer and John McMartin support the comedy with their own antics. And Carson Elrod is perfect in his blue paint and Mohawk. By the end of the play, in the fashion of good farces, all is properly resolved. The Queen’s representative is pacified, true love is realized and rewarded, the Irish are informed they can remain in Ireland and Luigi proves to be an excellent bartender (watch the glasses fly). The Explorers Club is a hilarious send up of Victorian England, filled with sight gags, word play and outlandish situations. From the first scene in the the first act to the last scene in the final act, the laughter never ceases.
***
"The Explorers Club" is a sly, witty, skewering of chauvinist men By Lucy Komisar
“The Explorers Club.” I haven’t seen such a clever, funny, outrageous satirical play in years as this work by Nell Benjamin! It’s London in 1879. A very stodgy club of naturalists and explorers is having its annual meeting in a Victorian townhouse whose every inch of wood-paneled walls is decorated with tusks and stuffed animal heads and paintings of illustrious members. At the back, center, is a bar. (The explorer-spoofing set is by Donyale Werle.) One of the members, Professor Walling (a nerdy Steven Boyer), is holding a guinea pig in a wicker cage. It’s the only one he has left after, in an experiment, he put food outside cages of his other mouse-like creatures to see if they could figure out the latches. They did. Now he can’t find them, except for Jane, the only slacker, who couldn’t open the cage door. Professor Cope (the puffed up Brian Avers), who discovered a deadly new species of cobra, wears one around his neck. She is Rosie, named for his mother. Not that Benjamin is dissing biology; she is just making fun of these self-important male researchers who have anthropomorphized rodents and snakes. Compare them to intrepid anthropologist and explorer Phyllida Spotte-Hume (Jennifer Westfeldt), who has just discovered a legendary Lost City. Lucius Fretway (Lorenzo Pisoni), acting president, has invited her to give the club’s annual lecture, and he wants to propose her for membership. However, the other men demur, because she is a woman. Forget that she is talented and they are fools. Westfeldt is a brilliant Phyllida, smart, assertive, ingenious and slightly surprised that the stupid men don’t treat her as she deserves.Nevertheless, Lucius presents Phyllida. She has arrived with Luigi (Carson Elrod), a warrior of the Lost City of Pahatlabonga’s NaKong tribe. Luigi is marked with blue paint, including a line from his scalp down his nose that ends in rough pants tied with a cord. He is also decorated with feathers and tattoos. (He is called Luigi, because Phyllida names everything Luigi.) Elrod is a delightful, quirky tribesman. Phyllida proceeds to give a faux-erudite and satirical speech displaying British imperial contempt for the lesser folks of discovered lands. She notes that the expedition had set out with “cheap alcohol for the local guides and better quality alcohol for the stove.” But alas, she was “deserted by those guides who had not died of alcohol poisoning. She plans to present Luigi to Queen Victoria. As it happens, Cope and Walling are also going to the palace to report on their discoveries and invite her to share a cab.
However, Phyllida does not find the same welcome from Professor Sloane (a pompous John McMartin), who declares, “Your science is adequate, but your sex is weak with sin and led astray with divers lusts. No offense.” Turns out he is professor of archeo-theology, which he declares is Biblical Science.He explains, “There’s no reason the Bible can’t be used as a scientific text, and the Bible exhorts us to beware the evil woman.” Does this remind you of Christian fundamentalism?
But there is more than social niceties (or rudeness) involved. Percy declares that brandy and cigars is “the heart and soul of the British Empire.…The Romans? The Persians? The…other ones. If they’d had brandy and cigars, we’d all be speaking Roman today.” In another aperçu, he asserts, “We are manly. And women are not.” He emphasizes manliness with a military costume he says is his old uniform — from a production of “HMS Pinafore.” Benjamin cordially mocks religion. When Sloane tries to proselytize Luigi, Lucius declares, “He’s just repeating words he doesn’t understand.” Sloane replies, “That’s good enough for the church.” When Sloane declaims against lust, asserting that “a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread!” Percy interjects, “Really? Where? They’re much more expensive where I go.” Almost as an afterthought, another member of the club arrives. Beebe (Arnie Burton) was on Percy’s expedition. He was captured by the terrible Warrior Monks of Jho Dae, because Percy had desecrated their Sacred Mountain. He explains that the Jho Dae is a religious sect whose laws are collected in sacred scrolls called the Tao Ra. After talking about his awful ordeal in a miles-long underground maze filled with challenges and horrors, he declares that Jho Dae-ism is not for everyone. (Get it? Read the graf out loud.)
|
| museums | NYTW mail | recordings | coupons | publications | classified |