Chattanooga Pulse

I’m bored with seeing The Importance of Being Earnest performed poorly at high schools, colleges, community and professional theaters, year after year. I’ve seen Tartuffe enough times that I could probably tell you when an actor drops a line or a director cuts a scene.

Yet the longevity of these overly performed farces appears to correspond to the playwrights’ mastery of witty one-liners, irony which buzzes around an issue and then—like a wasp—stings with such force that the truth hurts. They also have a coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end.

In comparison, Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only shines with wit and humor, but falls short in establishing a coherent theme, a main character, or appropriate questions for the audience to wrestle with after the lights go down.

When Hank Hadley (played by John Hammons), a famous fashion designer, loses his long-time lover, Mike, Hank visits his friends the McCulloughs for support and companionship. But when Jack McCullough (played by director Patrick Sweetman) and his daughter, Spenser (played by Lizzie Chazen), agree to help the president of the United States write legislature to protect “traditional” marriage, Hank begins to evaluate not only his friendship with the McColloughs but also his past relationship with Mike, whom he never married, nor had the desire to. Tibby McCullough (played by Anne Swedberg), Jack’s wife and Hank’s long-time friend, becomes the catalyst of the play’s conflict, as Tibby is pulled in opposite directions by her contrasting loves for Jack and Hank.

Chattanooga Theatre Centre’s production of Regrets Only is performed in the round with a set showing a wealthy American family’s living room. The set design was appropriately simple, as the one-liners provided ample color to the performance. Director Patrick Sweetman utilizes multiple entrances and exits by having the maid, Myra (played by Marcia L. Parks), interrupt her employers at inopportune times with critiques reminiscent of Dorine from Tartuffe.

Under Sweetman’s direction, this production offers a cast of impressive relationships and overall good comedic timing. Hammons and Swedberg portray longtime friends with a mutual appreciation for the other’s emotional support in a world that misunderstands them both—Hank as a homosexual and Tibby as a brainless socialite, concerned only with fashion and cocktails. Swedberg communicates confidence and humor, providing Hammons an excellent companion to give and take ironic quips about marriage, men and women, and social conventions.

Chazen brings her unique style to the newly engaged Spencer McCullough who, in Spencer’s words, has gone “Bridezilla.” Chazen’s portrayal is energetic and interesting. There were only a few times when her line delivery and physicality became caricature. Sweetman’s portrayal of Jack McCullough seemed too often one-level, as he emphasized the humor in his lines while neglecting the potential for variation in his character’s personality.

Nancy Hammons, as the stereotypical elderly rich white woman Marrietta Claypoole, who feels no guilt in spending exorbitant amounts of money on furs, booze, and the best seats in the house, brings an impressive, dynamic quality to her character. In the last act, Marrietta, hurt by Tibby’s critique of her as a pedantic and condescending mother, decides to treat her daughter as an adult. Hammons convinces the audience that she has heard, changed slightly, but continues to defy despair even after realizing her failure as a mother. This is farce, after all.

And finally, Parks as the eccentric and, often plot-driving Myra brings energy and much humor to the play with her comedic timing and physicality. Her Irish accent is impressive as well.

Humor often highlights humankind’s magnificent ability to maintain a discrepancy between what one says and what one means, between what one promises will be done and what one actually does, and finally between what is hoped for and what the situation actually allows. Portrayed by the talented cast of The Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Rudnick’s Regrets Only possesses many instances of these hilarious ironies. Yet comedy often attempts to bring some resolution—Wilde’s Jack finds that for all of society’s lies  (which he adds to), it sometimes stumbles upon the truth; and Moliere’s Orgon finally recognizes and is purged of the hypocrite Tartuffe.

For resolution, Rudnick offers a laugh in both the face of all who would prevent gay marriage and those who hope for it, simply acknowledging that it is a complex question that challenges the presuppositions of many Americans. But what is the audience member supposed to take from the theater, except the frustration that comedy can become a gimmick, tricking people into affirming ridiculous and contradicting ideas, yet not illuminating them through humor and then suggesting a conclusion, an action, or a stance. But then again, laughter does help the heart, right?

Regrets Only
$15
8 p.m.
November 13, 14, 20, 21
Chattanooga Theatre Centre,
Circle Stage, 400 River Street
(423) 267-8534.
www.theatrecentre.com