‘Tons Of Money’ A Lightweight Comedy At Civic

The thing to do in “Tons of Money,” a silly British drawing-room comedy, is to enjoy the style and talent in the comic performances.

The cast, under the direction of Margot Ogden, has a good grasp of the ever-so-precise diction and wit of the World War I era British layabout aristocracy. The accents, the costumes, and the characters could have come right out of a P.G. Wodehouse “Jeeves” production by the BBC.

Scott Dunckley makes a decent Aubrey, an in-debt young upper-class twit who hatches a scheme to inherit “tons of money” by pretending to die. Dunckley’s accent is perfect, and he has good comic timing. Plus, he resembles John Cleese in his ability to use his lanky body to comic effect, and in his ability to be smugly upper-class.

Susy Wasson-Picard, as Louise, Aubrey’s wife, also has that smugness down pat. Louise is the kind of woman who says “awfully” a lot, and who makes every word sound like a complaint, although a particularly fluty, musical complaint.

Among the supporting cast, the most effective is Lei Broadstone, as Jean Everard, a flighty woman who suddenly discovers that her long-lost husband is alive. Actually, she discovers this three different times with three different husbands (it’s a long story), but it doesn’t take any of the bloom off for her. It just triples the pleasure.

Laurie Ann Fondiler and Pat Johnston are wonderful as the maid and the butler, Simpson and Sprules. I also liked Jone Campbell Bryan, as the hard-of-hearing Miss Benita Mullet.

With that said, I found the play itself to be somewhat of a chore to sit through. The story is second-rate situation comedy, relying on tiresome mistaken identity gags for almost its entire plot. The characters are unrelievedly silly, and too much of the humor relies on repetitive gags, such as when Benita Mullet says, “I’m not deaf.”

The silliness has its physical manifestation in its insistence on “George” (at least one of the three Georges; it’s a long story) wearing a massive Mexican sombrero hat around the drawing room. This failed to send me into gales of laughter.

This play was written in the World War I era by Will Evans, a famous London comic actor, and Valentine, a comedy writer. It was revised by Alan Ayckbourn, but apparently not much. It still comes off as dated, silly, and pointless. It’s like P.G. Wodehouse without any of the social satire.

The only reason I can think of for doing this play is to give Dunckley a comic vehicle. However, it’s not a particularly good vehicle. He gets little latitude to use his physical comedy. Everybody, however, gets to act silly for two hours. That’s a little too much silly for me. , DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Tons of Money” Friday night, Spokane Civic Theatre, continues through April 27, call 325-2507.