The 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was originally intended as a vehicle for David Bowie and Mick Jagger, and though I’ve tried to envision what that film might have been like, I just can’t see it. Both Bowie and Jagger can act, being certainly more the case with Bowie than Jagger, but neither is exactly known for his comedic chops, and throwing them into a frothy farce like this one would have just been disastrous. The film was released with bravura performances from Michael Caine and Steve Martin in the lead roles and was a triumph for good ideas everywhere.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the musical, seemed to me to be an idea as bad as the proposed Bowie-Jagger film. I’ve always looked askance at the recent trend of recycling movies as Broadway musicals. Sure, Mel Brooks is cleaning up from the adaptations of The Producers and Young Frankenstein, and John Waters is seeing more coin from the musical version of Hairspray than he ever did from the original film, but just as with remakes that crowd the cineplex, musicals based on movies come at the expense of original plays that might otherwise have gotten investors and advanced live theater.
That said, I’ve seen Town & Gown’s production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and, despite my objections to its origins, I found it pretty good. Director Ashley Laramore and musical director Justin Sanders have cast their production well and put together a fun evening on Grady Avenue.
For those who may not be familiar with the film or the play, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is about hardcore players in the confidence game. Lawrence Jameson (Don Smith) is an aging lion in the French Riviera town of Beaumont-sur-Mer who poses as a charming prince in exile in order to fleece wealthy and gullible ladies out of their money to finance his fictitious revolution. Assisted by a bored and corrupt local policeman (Adam Shirley), Jameson has a good thing going until he catches wind of a traveling con artist known as “The Jackal†who has been striking all along the Mediterranean coast.
As Andre the cop searches for clues of The Jackal’s arrival in town, Jameson encounters a penny-ante hustler named Freddy Benson (Joseph Hitchcock) scamming free meals and small bills. Although the notion that someone as dimwitted as Benson could possibly be The Jackal is absurd, Benson nevertheless threatens to frighten off Jameson’s potential marks. Benson, discovering that Jameson is not only a fellow grifter but spectacularly successful at it, threatens to expose Jameson unless the older man schools him. The partnership is rendered short-lived by the arrival of Christine Colgate (Margot Hitchcock, Joseph’s real-life spouse), a naïve heiress dubbed “America’s Soap Queen.†The two con men wager that the first of them to part Christine from $50,000 of her money can run the other out of town. The game is afoot, and hijinks ensue as the rivals sabotage each other in pursuit of their quarry.
Laramore’s cast is well-chosen. As Jameson, Smith pulls off suavity mixed with disaffected ennui very nicely. As Jameson’s past marks, Amy Miller and Meghan Brown lend their chops and wonderful voices to complicating the story. Margot Hitchcock gives us a Christine with bright-eyed enthusiasm and charisma. Joseph Hitchcock is an interesting case. Funny and physical though he is during most of the play, he really comes alive during his musical numbers, his personal wattage increasing exponentially when he’s singing, which makes one wish he would maintain that level of energy when he’s not.
Top honors in this cast, however, go to the veteran Adam Shirley, playing the corrupt French policeman André. “Corrupt French policeman†has been a choice part ever since Claude Rains in Casablanca, and Shirley steals scenes every time his character appears onstage, whether it’s to berate Benson (in the show’s best number, “Chimp in a Suitâ€) or romance Miller’s character to get her off Jameson’s back.
Laramore has made some interesting choices with her set, not the least of which is an onstage pit for the tight six-piece band that provides the musical score. Most T&G musicals relegate the band to an area behind the flats or up in the loft so as to reserve as much real estate on the small stage as possible, but here the band plays in plain sight in front of a changing projection screen which, along with some furniture, helps to establish scene changes over a mostly static set in hues of peach and white. The French Riviera is hinted at more than suggested, but this is not terribly distracting.
The most striking element of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the visible fun its cast and chorus appear to be having, a sense of playfulness and farce that is infectious. While most community-theater productions have no end of heart, it’s actually rare that they convey the sense that the players are enjoying themselves as much as they expect the audience to, but this production does it handily. Whatever Laramore has done to inspire this attitude in her cast, it is obviously a very good idea.
John G. Nettles [email protected]
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels runs Thursday–Sunday, June 14–17, at the Athens Community Theatre on Grady Avenue. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $18, $10 for students with ID on Thursday, June 14. For reservations, call (706) 208-8696.
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