Dec. 10--The new, old comedy at Chicago Shakespeare Theater begins with a flatulent grandfather clock -- who knew? -- and proceeds directly from there to the loud squawk of an unseen 18th-century Frenchman surprised by the contents of a chamber pot being emptied on his noggin as he walks down the street. All class, there on Navy Pier.
That little soupcon should be enough to warn off those for whom an evening at a bawdy French farce is about as much fun as being stuck in an elevator with a bitter Bob Cratchit understudy. If gags about bodily secretions, the machinations of clever servants and the invasive sexual adventures of seniors who should know better are not your bag, be warned also that it is a farce with, wait for it, wait for it, audience participation, aka confirmation of entry into the seventh circle of hell.
Yes, the seasonal farceurs staging David Ives' "The Heir Apparent" may take it upon themselves to inquire of you if you are, say, understanding the plot at this particular moment, or drag you into some other such invasion of your presumed privacy, except don't presume.
Still reading? Snickering at the idea of the farting clock? Giggling at the very thought of shenanigans with the ingenue? Then you'll likely think "The Heir Apparent" is a good holiday laugh, replete with a nice little crew of top-drawer farceurs under the most lively direction of John Rando.
If so, you will, I promise, be safe in the hands of Paxton Whitehead, the veteran actor (and former artistic director of Canada's Shaw Festival) who has shown up in Chicago for the holidays like one of those old British ah-ctorrs who used to bring culture on their backs to the great unwashed of the Middle West. Only Paxton's Geronte, which might as well be French for geriatric, has not taken a bath himself in quite a while. He is a dirty old man, in more ways than one.
Thus with Paxton's more-than-ample bass baritone and well-honed comic timing assuring all progresses with wit and amusement, you can leave the kids at home. You need fear not sugar plums, tinsel nor weighty themes. And you can chortle with impunity at a plethora of domestic jokes, all just sanitized enough to pass muster in these challenging, politically correct times.
Plus, the show's got rhythm.
"He hired a lawyer no taller than a creeper," observes Jessie Fisher's droll maid, Lisette. "As if because he's short, he might come cheaper."
Ives' version of "The Heir Apparent" was first seen last spring at New York's Classic Stage Company, also under Rando's direction and also with Whitehead in the lead role of The Old Miser with the Money Chest Just Will Not Die Even Though the Lovers and Servants Want Him Gone.
You might well not know this title, being as the history of French farces in the popular English-speaking theater pretty much starts and ends with Monsieur Moliere, who has squeezed out any and all competish. "The Heir Apparent" was originally the work of Jean-Francois Regnard -- crickets, I know -- but he has been rehabilitated by Ives, who approached the script rather like a young couple approaches a Victorian home, hoping to build a nice shiny kitchen and knocking down all the boring walls in the process.
These days, adaptive translators feel free to introduce anachronisms. (If Lin-Manuel Miranda can get away with it in "Hamilton," why not?) Moreover, the playwright is long dead, so no nasty letters will be forthcoming from the Dramatists Guild.
And thus although the characters -- led by the clever servant Crispin (Cliff Saunders) -- vaguely inhabit the 18th century, their language and comedic sensibilities range freely across time and space. And Kevin Depinet's grandly absurd setting disgorges a veritable plethora of bonus chuckles.
Like his designers, Ives is enough of a craftsman and wordsmith to pull most of this off -- and I very much enjoyed Fisher's work, who shares the comic weight of the show with the jovial Saunders as the archetypical servant of whatever master happens to be in the play. Nate Burger and Emily Peterson are the aptly dull lovers, while Linda Kimbrough gets in some licks, as does the grumbly Patrick Kerr, who spends the entire show on his knees, being as he is playing the mini-lawyer with the maxi-attitude.
At its core, this is a chance for the unstinting Whitehead to strut, boom, gurgle, whine, whimper and growl. Sure, it's all in service of laughs. But as in all decent productions of farces, there is something fundamentally terrifying about what this actor of the old school is doing.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
"The Heir Apparent" -3 stars
When: Through Jan.17
Where: Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier.
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Tickets: $48-88 at 312-595-5600 or chicagoshakes.com
