If the Shue fits…
On Friday, the Spokane Civic Theatre continues its Larry Shue tribute with the playwright’s biggest comedy smash, “The Foreigner.”
This follows the Civic production of Shue’s other huge comedy hit, “The Nerd,” almost exactly a year ago. If you laughed at “The Nerd,” chances are you’ll laugh at “The Foreigner” as well.
“The Foreigner” is Shue’s 1983 off-Broadway hit about a shy Englishman who spends a week at a backwoods Georgia hunting camp. He pretends he doesn’t speak English, which makes for a lot of comic misunderstandings.
It also means he uncovers a sinister white-supremacist plot, since the other denizens of the hunting camp say things around him they shouldn’t.
“He (Shue) once told me that one of the things that gave him pleasure in ‘The Foreigner’ was that he could make it turn out all right for the good guys,” once said the artistic director of the Milwaukee Rep, where Shue was the playwright-in-residence.
“The Foreigner” was still running off-Broadway at the time of Shue’s death in a 1985 airplane crash. It went on to become one of the longest-running plays in New York.
The Civic did a popular production of it in 1995; several other productions have been mounted in the region since then.
A 2004 off-Broadway version starring Matthew Broderick in the title role was a popular (if not critical) success.
The Civic’s Main Stage production is directed by Wes Dietrick and features Joe Vander Weil in the title role. The cast also includes Troy Heppner, Kathie Doyle-Lipe, Jaylan Renz, Kari Severns, Will Gilman and Andrew Biviano.
The death of Shue at age 39 was one of the tragedies of American theater. The crash occurred while he was flying to his cabin in the Shenandoah Mountains on a commuter plane.
Shue was born in New Orleans, grew up in the Midwest and served in Vietnam. He began his theater career as an actor, appearing on Broadway and on the TV soap “One Life to Live.”
He started his playwriting career relatively late, and was just hitting his stride at the time of the accident.
Both “The Nerd” and “The Foreigner” were developed at the Milwaukee Rep and immediately went on to wildly popular commercial runs. They have been staples of regional and community theaters ever since.