Category: Farce

A Ray Cooney Farce!

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

Performances: May 17 – June 21, 2025

Ticket Prices: $44-49. Ask about discounts for students, seniors, and veterans.

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

A Theater Reflection by Julinda D. Lewis

In his pre-show curtain talk, director Tom Width told the Wednesday matinee audience that this show, There Goes the Bride, was the seventh Ray Cooney farce to grace the Swift Creek Mill stage*. Just last June we were treated to Run for Your Wife, https://jdldancesrva.com/2024/06/08/run-for-your-wife/ just for the fun of it. This spring, Width brought back There Goes the Bride after a 20-year hiatus, because “it’s just so stupid!”

The Plot

Timothy Westerby, an affable but overworked advertising executive, is trying to complete an ad campaign on the morning of his daughter’s wedding. He has to balance picking up the flowers, getting them to the church and to the prospective in-laws at their hotel, picking up some black socks for his own father-in-law, and along the way picking up the life-sized cut-out of the new ad campaign’s mascot – a 1920s flapper in a red dress and feather boa (and yes, those details are all important). Of course, he botches these assignments and ends up getting a bump in the head that results in him hallucinating that the flapper cut-out is a real woman, who has a crush on him, and who is dance partner in a show-business routine. Whew! Got all that? Because the fun is just getting started.

The Farce

In true farcical style (and I guess that is a real word, since spell check didn’t flag it…), things go downhill quickly. The bride locks herself in her room. Timothy’s wife, Ursula, pretends Timothy’s cousin, Bill, is her husband because Charlotte, the bride’s pretentious mother-in-law-to-be, who has travelled all the way from Australia only to find that Timothy, the bride’s father, had forgotten to confirm her hotel reservation, is appalled at Timothy’s behavior. Ursula’s mother, Daphne, spends much of the morning trying to get into her girdle, while her husband, Gerald, a retired doctor, meddles in everybody’s business and has a grand old time mimicking Timothy who suffers not just one but a series of head bumps, each leading to more outrageous behavior until, finally, he comes to himself. Ursula becomes increasingly distraught trying to compete with Polly who, by the way, no one but Timothy can see, because she is, after all, an hallucination.

My Take

Each of these characters brings something unique to the ensemble. The bride herself is not the main character, spending much of the play locked away in her room, horrified by her father’s behavior as well as the overly elaborate wedding her parents have planned. It seems she and her betrothed – who is not even a character in the play – would just as soon go to the registry and have a civil wedding and avoid all the fuss of a church ceremony followed by a reception in her parent’s garden. But near the beginning of the play Judy, played by Maggie Jordan does manage to create somewhat of a stir by revealing to her parents that she and her fiancé – whose name I can’t even remember – have engaged in some pre-marital shenanigans. While her mother, Ursula, played by Emma Mason, takes this news in stride, it upsets her father Timothy (Robbie Winston) to the point where he is ready to call off the whole wedding. That seems to be just the opposite of the reaction I would have expected of the father, but this is a farce and it’s not my family, so…

Ursula (Emma Mason) and Bill (Matt Hackman) try to keep everything from falling apart, but as soon as they patch up one problem, another pops up; such is the nature of a farce. Both manage to generate humor while attempting to be the face of calm and reason in the midst of madness. Amazingly, I don’t think either of them ever broke character or struggled to hold back a snicker, a giggle, or a full guffaw. Very admirable.

Most of the physical, slapstick style humor was assigned to Robbie Winston’s character, Timothy. Winston navigated his fair share of pratfalls and head bumps, as well as the choreography of slamming doors as he moved Polly around like the bottle cap hidden under the cup in a sleight-of-hand shell game – all while everyone else on stage pretended not to see her.

But we all have personal favorites, and for this production mine were John Hagadorn as the fumbling and forgetful grandfather, Dr. Gerald Drimmond and Valerie Chinn as the invisible flapper, Polly Perkins. Drimmond was droll throughout, dropping one-liners and making pertinent observations that always seemed to hit with extra nuance. His mimicking of Winston’s steps – which he called the doo-dah – was the highlight of his performance. It was the kind of bit that would have made you spit out your drink, if you were drinking. And then there was Valerie Chin, bouncing and bopping, doing the Charleston and swinging her feather boa, always with a huge smile and that laugh – that indescribable, bright, bubbly, cartoonish laugh!

In his Director’s Notes, Tom Width wrote: “We do love our farces here at the Mill!” As silly as it may look, this production required masterful timing to pull off. As Width explained, “the clown has to be a gymnast before he can do his pratfall as a comedian; everything must be planned carefully by the numbers before we can throw the number away and make it look as if there never were any numbers; and whit is seemingly mayhem must be meticulously planned.” Well, There Goes the Bride is masterfully, meticulously planned and executed. It has no deep or hidden messages; it’s just pure fun.

Oh, and Timothy did come up with a jingle for his ad campaign for his important client, a bra company: Perkins can take the flop out of your flappers!

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

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THERE GOES THE BRIDE

By Ray Cooney and John Chapman

Directed by Tom Width

CAST

Emma Mason           as Ursula Westerby

Maggie Jordan        as Judy Westerby

John Hagadorn        as Dr. Gerald Drimmond

Matt Hackman          as Bill Shorter

Robbie Winston       as Timothy Westerby

Valerie Chinn            as Polly Perkins

Catherine Butler Cooper   as Daphne Drimmond

Joy Williams             as Charlotte Babcock

CREATIVE TEAM

Directed by Tom Width

Scenic Design by Tom Width

Lighting Design by Joe Doran

Costume Design by Maura Lynch Cravey

Technical Direction by James Nicholas

PRODUCTION STAFF

Producing Artistic Director …. Tom With

Technical Director ….. James Nicholas

Stage Manager ….. Sandy Lambert

Assistant Stage Manager/Props ….. Tom Width

Scenic Carpenter … Peter Prout

Light/Sound Board Operator ….. Brent Deekens

Set Crew ….. Peter Prout, Brent Deekens, Caitlin Tolson, Vincent Prout, Dasia Gregg, Nathan Hamill

Lighting Crew ….. Liz Allmon, Brent Deekens, Caitlin Tolson, Peter Prout

Photographer ….. Daryll Morgan

Wig Design ….. Alia Radabaugh

Time and Place:

The London home of the Westerbys, Summer 1974

Run Time:

About 2 hours, with 1 intermission

Performances:

May 17 – June 21, 2025

Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8:00PM

Select Wednesdays at 2:30PM

Tickets:

Regular $44-49. Discounts for Seniors, Military & Veterans

*Other Ray Cooney farces produced at Swift Creek Mill over the decades:

Run For Your Wife; Caught in the Net; Out of Order; Move Over, Mrs. Markham; It Runs in the Family; and Funny Money

Photographer: Daryll Morgan