RUN FOR YOUR WIFE

A Fast-Paced Farce, Just for the Fun of It

At: The Swift Creek Mill Theatre, 17401 U.S. Route One, Chesterfield, VA 23834

Performances: May 18 – June 15, 2024

Ticket Prices: $49. Discounts available for students, seniors, and veterans.

Info: (804) 748-5203 or https://www.swiftcreekmill.com

Run For Your Wife is a classic farce: fast-paced and filled with ridiculous situations and pratfalls. The play is set in the homes of John and Mary Smith and John and Barbara Smith, in the conveniently located London neighborhoods of Wimbledon and Streatham, in the Spring of 1982. Location is very important, as John Smith, a taxi driver, has a strict schedule to keep in order to balance his two households. John, you see, is a bigamist. He’s also a master scheduler who should be giving workshops in time management.

All goes well, until the day he gets mugged and ends up in the hospital where his two addresses cause confusion, leading to a police investigation. John’s injuries are not serious, but the fallout turns his life upside down, and provides fodder for a series of events that are so outrageous this play, by Ray Cooney, ran in London for nine years.

We don’t have to travel all the way across “the pond” to get in on the fun. Jeffrey Meisner plays the role of the hapless husband, with Emma Mason as his first wife, the steadfast and practical Mary, and Katherine S. Wright as his second wife, the alluring and somewhat ditzy Barbara. To help manage the comings and goings on stage, a single living room was designed to represent the two households. The décor is green on the left side (Barbara’s home) and red on the right (Mary’s home) with a sofa in the middle that blends both red and green. At times, characters onstage are in close proximity, or even pass one another, but they are in two different households in two different locations. And do you know what? It works! Tom Width’s design is simple yet functional.

The timing is fast-paced and masterful. While not a work that requires the audience to think deep thoughts, it does require the viewers to pay attention; it’s sort of the comedic version of a tennis match. As Tom Width states in his Director’s Notes, “if things slow down, the characters will realize just how crazy their behavior is and stop doing what they’re doing!”  

Jeffrey Meisner steered the ensemble towards inevitable doom with a solid performance (oh, and London cabbies must have been well paid in 1982 to be able to afford two households!), but my favorite character was the Smith’s neighbor (and tenant?) Stanley Gardner, played by Kenny Putnam. Putnam wrung every possible bit of comic effect from each of his lines and even gave us a well-timed roll over a sofa. There is also a running joke about Stanley being gay, not intended to be offensive, if you accept that sexism and idiocy are acceptable devices in a farce. Similarly, Sarbajeet Das plays Bobby, Barbara’s over-the-top flamboyant new neighbor. Matt Bloch and Matt Hackman bring balance, in the form of somewhat more subtle humor, as the two detectives investigating John.

Run for Your Wife may not be your cup of tea if you are easily offended or insist on political correctness, but if a flat-out farce is among your preferred forms of entertainment, then look no further, this is your show.

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Julinda D. Lewis is a dancer, teacher, and writer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Eastern Henrico County. When not writing about theater, she teaches dance history at VCU and low impact dance fitness classes to seasoned movers like herself, and occasionally performs.

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RUN FOR YOUR WIFE

Written by Ray Cooney

Directed by Tom Width

CAST

Mary Smith     ……………….. Emma Mason

Barbara Smith ……………….. Katherine S. Wright

John Smith      ……………….. Jeffrey Meisner

Detective Sergeant Troughton  ……………….. Matt Bloch

Stanley Gardner……………… Kenny Putnam

Newspaper Reporter   ………. Tom Width

Detective Sergeant Porterhouse   ……………….. Matt Hackman

Bobby Franklyn  …………….. Sarbajeet Das

CREATIVE TEAM

Directed by Tom With

Costume Design by Maura Lynch Cravey

Lighting Design by Joe Doran

Scenic Design by Tom Width

Technical Direction by Liz Allmon

Run Time:

About 2 hours with 1 intermission

Tickets:

Regular $49. Discounts for Seniors, Military & Veterans

Photographer: Kieran Segaloff