{"id":7552,"date":"2018-11-01T07:21:40","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T11:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7552"},"modified":"2018-12-13T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:18:12","slug":"charleys-aunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7552","title":{"rendered":"Charley’s Aunt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charley's

Seamus Mulcahy as “Charley’s Aunt” in an unguarded moment; photo, Jerry Dalia<\/p><\/div>\n

Charley\u2019s Aunt<\/em>, the 1892 farce that ran almost 1,500 performances in London\u2019s West End is remounted by The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey<\/a> in a sparkling, fast-paced production directed by Joseph Discher that opened October 27 and runs through November 18.<\/p>\n

As the play opens, St. Olde\u2019s College student Jack Chesney (played by Aaron McDaniel) is in his campus rooms, fretting over the draft of a letter to a young lady. He can\u2019t get the news of his attachment quite right, and her family is decamping to Scotland on the morrow. He\u2019s soon joined by his pal Charles Wykeham (Isaac Hickox-Young), suffering similar writer\u2019s block over his letter to another young lady in the soon-to-depart group.<\/p>\n

Charley, an orphan, is further flustered by information that his wealthy aunt, Donna Lucia D\u2019Alvadorez will be arriving mid-day to meet him. Though she\u2019s paid for his education from her home in far-off Brazil (\u201cwhere the nuts come from\u201d), they\u2019ve never met. Jack soon concocts a plan to invite their lady-loves to luncheon in his rooms to meet Charley\u2019s aunt, who can provide a suitable chaperonage. But how to get rid of her when they want privacy? Jack hits on the stratagem of adding their amusing friend Lord Fancourt Babberly\u2014\u201cBabbs\u201d (Seamus Mulcahy<\/a>) to the party. He can entertain the old lady, surely.<\/p>\n

Babbs arrives and mentions he\u2019s taken up amateur theatricals and is about to play an elderly lady in some production. (At this point, the direction of the plot is clear, which doesn\u2019t subtract a bit from the enjoyment!) The costume is produced, Babbs dons it, and almost simultaneous with the arrival of the young ladies is a note saying Donna Lucia\u2019s plans have changed and she cannot arrive for several days.<\/p>\n

Poor Babbs is finagled into pretending to be the aunt and the fun is in full sway. More people join the luncheon party\u2014Jack\u2019s father, Colonel Sir Frances Chesney (David Andrew MacDonald) and the father and guardian of the young ladies, Stephen Spettigue (John Ahlin), both of whom have an eye on the fetching (and wealthy) Donna Lucia.<\/p>\n

Although the story starts a bit slowly, once the plot gets rolling, there\u2019s no stopping it. When Charley\u2019s aunt\u2014the real Donna Lucia (Erika Rolfsrud)\u2014arrives after all, sizes up the situation, and keeps her true identity secret in order to torment poor Babbs, the catastrophes multiply.<\/p>\n

The cast has a great deal of fun with the physical comedy and sight gags, including the three delightful ingenues: Emiley Kiser, Erica Knight, and Sally Kingsford. By maintaining his dignity regardless of the outrages he witnesses, Peter Simon Hilton\u2019s Butler is a perfect comic foil.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the real success of the production rests on the shoulders of Seamus Mulcahy. His Babbs\u2014mugging, fleeing, angry, amorous\u2014is a treat from beginning to end and well earned the enthusiastic standing ovation he and the cast received.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online<\/a>. Note that STNJ offers special ticket pricing of $30 for theatergoers under age 30!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charley\u2019s Aunt, the 1892 farce that ran almost 1,500 performances in London\u2019s West End is remounted by The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in a sparkling, fast-paced production directed by Joseph Discher that opened October 27 and runs through November … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Charley's Aunt - the 1892 farce favorite remounted in a rollicking production by Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[272,104,147],"tags":[1439,1440,553],"class_list":["post-7552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-charleys-aunt","tag-seamus-mulcahy","tag-shakespeare-theatre-of-new-jersey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1XO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7557,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7552\/revisions\/7557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}