The Company Theatre presents A Gentleman’s Guide To Love and Murder by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak. Co-Directed by Zoe Bradford and Sally Ashton Forrest. Musical Direction by Robert McDonough. Lighting Design by Dean Palmer Jr. Costume Design by Joe Michienzie. Set Design by Ryan Barrow. Specialty Costume Pieces designed by Kathryn Ridder. At the Company Theatre, Norwell, through March 30th, 2024
By Linda Chin
An anchor of theater in MA’s South Shore, The Company Theatre goes to great lengths to mount a great shows. Their recent production of Born to Do This, the original Joan of Arc musical (created by Zoe Bradford, Michael Hammond and Mel Carubia) was acknowledged – from a very crowded field of “post-COVID’ contenders – in “Theater Mirror’s Reviewers ‘Top 10’ Lists for 2023.” Company’s 2022 production of Sweeney Todd, starring Peter Adams and MaryAnn Zschau in the leading roles, was “Meaty Material Performed to Perfection.” Like Sweeney, Gentleman’s Guide is a story of love, murder, and revenge set in London of yore, but it is not a dark drama. Rather it is a British satire meant to be murderously funny, and that consistent with Company’s mission to entertain and educate, comments on classicism and racism by keeping you laughing, which we can all use these days. Like Sweeney, Gentleman’s Guide is a Tony Award-winning Best Musical (2014) – but the book and music aren’t Sondheim (nor Bradford, Hammond, Carubia for that matter).
After a prologue where a group of mourners advise audience members with “weak constitutions” to leave the theater because of potentially disturbing subject matter, titular character of Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Lord Montague “Monty” D’Ysquith Navarro, Ninth Earl of Highhurst (Justin Maloney) sits behind a desk downstage left, writing his memoir from prison. The rest of the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks set inside a proscenium within the proscenium (and the resplendent nine piece orchestra, conducted by Robert McDonough, in front of the stage).
Monty’s loving mother, a poor washerwoman who was disowned by her family because she married a foreigner with no prospects (a Castilian musician) and raised him alone – has just died. Monty finds Sibella Hayward (Dru Daniels), an attractive and flirtatious woman, absolutely irresistible, but Sibella is a social climber, and Monty, a well-meaning but penniless clerk is at risk of losing her to a suitor with more means. Turns out Monty’s mother was a member of the aristocratic D’Ysquith family, and he is ninth in line to the inherit the Earldom of Highhurst. What is someone as mild-mannered as Monty – a gentle man in a dead-end job, despondent about losing his mom, desperately in love, who would kill to get the girl he loves – to do?
The versatile Jason Denton plays the pesky eight relatives in the D’Ysquith family standing between Monty and the Earldom, who are murdered while they are going about their day-to-day lives, as a priest, banker, actor, businessman, when lifting weights, ice-skating on a frozen pond, performing in a play, dispensing food to the poor and hungry (in countries the Brits have colonized). Two scenes were favorites: On the colorful and beautifully landscaped grounds of a country estate (projections on a giant screen depict the locale), Monty meets a female cousin Phoebe, who is not in the line of succession and who captures his fancy (Stephanie Mann) and cleverly sets up one of the doomed heir’s death by a hundred bumblebees. In another scene in his flat, Monty is literally caught between his two love interests while he is physically trapped in the entryway between two rooms: the bedroom (where his married mistress Sibella is hiding after a romantic rendezvous) and the living room (where Phoebe arrives, without advanced notice to declare his intentions to marry Monty). This slapstick scene, with doors opening and closing, two women competing to get their man, and the song “I’ve Decided to Marry You” demonstrates this trio’s physical acting skills and their lovely voices.
What kills me the most about this production is that there is no resolution of this romantic triangle. Who will Monty settle down with? Yes, Sibella is pretty, and narcissistic, = pretty narcissistic, is married to another man and drops Monty when she tires of him, and is clearly interested in Monty’s money. These characteristics make Sibella less appealing to me, but she and Monty seem to be comfortable together. Phoebe is less flighty, more serious, seemingly more emotionally stable, but is used to being surrounded by wealth, and the accompanying creature comforts and seems to like to idea of being rebellious and “marrying down.” There is the fine point that she is his cousin, but maybe that’s not relevant in absurdist comedy.
Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder has a running time of over two and a half-hours. That equates to under 20 minutes per murder, an impressive accomplishment for an amateur. Overall the timing/pacing would benefit from tightening and the script would benefit from trimming but audience members looking to have a good time will enjoy the production. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.companytheatre.com/
