Don’t Dress For Dinner, the final show of the Gateway Theatre’s 2015-16 season is onstage now. Adapted by Marc Camoletti, the English adaptation of the French, Pyjamas Pour Six, Don’t Dress For Dinner has all the hallmarks of a classic mid-century farce. Husbands and wives, best friends and mistresses, a case of mistaken identity, slammed doors and musical beds or at least the attempt to jump between beds.
Todd Thomson as Bernard and Kirk Smith as Robert show an easy adeptness for the physical comedy required of the two characters. Tess Degenstein’s Suzette creates havoc for all the characters as she plays each one off of each other and making a pretty franc along the way.
The two act play is a whirlwind of action, sometimes moving at such a fast pace that the dialogue doesn’t allow time for the laughter to subside. The set designed by Jung-Hye Kim does good work of portraying a mid-century home and the costuming, by Cindy Wiebe, save for the odd hat and accessory, is less identifiable with an era creating a rather timeless style.
A touring show co-produced by Thousand Islands Playhouse and Western Canada Theatre, the Gateway Theatre presentation is the third staging of Don’t Dress For Dinner so the cast and crew are seasoned with the intricacies of the performance. However, all that experience still doesn’t prevent the odd accident, like the doorknob that ended up in the hand of Thomson, who handled the handle with much aplomb and resulted in some good laughter, especially as it punctuated the final scene by falling completely out of a slammed door and laying on the floor.
Don’t Dress For Dinner plays at The Gateway Theatre, 6500 Gilbert Road, Richmond until April 23, 2016.