North Coast Repertory Theatre scored with audiences 16 years ago when it staged Marc Camoletti’s farcical comedy “Don’t Dress for Dinner.”
Its stellar cast directed by Rosina Reynolds included popular local actors Phil Johnson, Amanda Sitton, Matt Thompson, Lisel Gorell-Getz and Jacque Wilke.
Oh, and one more: Playing Robert, the best buddy of the play’s scheming philanderer Bernard, was Christopher Williams.
Now North Coast Rep is bringing back “Don’t Dress for Dinner” with a cast featuring Brian Robert Burns, Kim Morgan Dean, Veronica Dunne, Katy Tang, Jared Van Heel and Brandon Pierce.
The director is Christopher Williams.
Williams recalls “everyone cracking each other up so much” during that 2008 staging of “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” but today he’s fully focused on the present. “I certainly have memories of it,” he said of that production from the past, “but these are different actors and they have their own lives to bring to it.”
Set in a converted farmhouse in , “Don’t Dress for Dinner” becomes a fast-paced playground for unhappily wed Bernard and Jacqueline, each of whom is plotting a tete-a-tete there with a lover. It gets a lot more complicated than that, but as strongly rooted in its characters as it is, said Williams, the action never careens out of control.
“It’s grounded in something that is real,” he said. “You have a husband and wife and each has a lover that they’re trying to get together with and it all goes awry. But it doesn’t feel madcap zany. It’s such a brilliant farce. The dialogue is so tight, the repetition of words is so well crafted and it always moves forward.
“It’s not just one sight gag after another. It does have a story that follows a journey,” he said.
A farce onstage relies heavily on pace and rhythm. As director, Williams “treats it like a music score,” he said. “We have our notes that we know we need to hit. We have timing that we need to hit, but we have to work our way up to it.”
Continuing with the music metaphor, Williams said “You can hear what’s funny, the beats, what sounds and works best to set a joke up. That’s the joy of comedy. Not everyone can do comedy. You have to be able to hear it.”
Williams is relying on the input of his actors as well as his own experience and intuition. “They’ve come into rehearsal with ideas. That’s the best cast to have,” he said. “I can sit back and just start to conduct. They’re already bringing in their ‘instruments’ and their ‘notes.’ I can give them little inflection ideas or tidbits to think about, and they take them and run with them.”
Having performed in North Coast Rep’s spring production of “Tartuffe,” “Don’t Dress for Dinner” is Williams’ second straight involvement with a farce this year.
“Farces can sometimes be distant,” he said, “like you’re watching from the inside. With this script (‘Don’t Dress for Dinner’) people can recognize either themselves in the characters or other people that they know. Not necessarily going through marital struggles, but personality traits.
“You have the Type-As, you have the people who are always thrust into the middle of problems and have to work their way out, or people who volunteer themselves and just go along. There’s a different kind of sense to this farce.”
‘Don’t Dress for Dinner’
When: Previews 2 and 8 p.m. today. Opens at 8 p.m. Saturday and runs through Aug. 18. 7 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. and Sundays
Where: North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach
Tickets: $54- and up
Phone: (858) 481-1055
Online: northcoastrep.org
