Mason players mix saucy humor with classic theatre themes

Mason Players broke into comedy for the first time this season with a hint of Rome doused in a healthy helping of early twentieth-century vaudeville.

As part of their 2013-2014 season, the Mason Players are performing “The Merchant” by Titus Maccius Plautus, bringing back an ancient comedy and early twentieth-century vaudeville with a seamless finesse.

This play, however, is not about the story. It is about the vaudeville experience. Similar to what Saturday Night Live is for us today, vaudeville presents a series of short acts throughout the evening. The acting is entirely presentational, with gags and tricks to keep the audience laughing, which many of the cast members did well.

For some, pandering to the audience seems more difficult, causing the actors to be stiff and closed off when they are supposed to charm the audience with warmth.

The play is directed and adapted by Ed Gero, who works as a professor at Mason’s School of Theater while maintaining a prosperous acting career in Washington D.C.

The language of the play seems dated to the twenty-first century college audience, but that only adds to the vaudeville charm the play oozes throughout the performance. It is surprising how well the story of Plautus’s work—written in the second or third century, and based on a play written even earlier— translates to the vaudeville style.

Underneath the hat tricks and the songs is a story of two families: the families of Demipho and Lysimachus.

Demipho, played by Scott Blamphin, adulterously lusts after the beautiful and very sparkly prostitute Pasicompsa, played by Cynthia Newby. He does not know that his son Charinus, played by Collin Riley, also lusts after Pasicompsa and begs his friend and neighbor Lysimachus, played by Ron Boykin, to purchase the girl and hide her in his house. Lysimachus does as his friend asks and trembles in fear that his wife Dorippa, played by Rachel Harrington, will come home and find the prostitute.

She does show up in act two, adding to the escalating levels of misunderstandings until finally Demipho realizes that his son is in love with the prostitute he wanted to sleep with and decides to give up his lustful hopes. The play ends with a full cast song and dance number.

Ron Boykin’s performance is seemingly perfect for the vaudeville format. He moves like a man half his age with comedic timing that nails it almost every single time. His relationship with Rachel Harrington, who plays his wife, is exemplified by his delightfully comedic display of a cowed husband.

The leading women of this play, Harrington and Becca Ward—who plays Dorippa’s talkative but loyal slave Syra, are the highlights of this production. Their ease with the vocal material and the audience makes the second act, the only one they are in, fly by far more quickly than the slower, slightly more awkward first act. Ward’s monologue, tied in with a spoken song waxing on the crimes of men and the injustices of the world, are some of the truest moments of the play.

Aside from the occasional stiffness from actors still learning to break out of their “actor” headspace, the main disadvantage this play has is sound. The live music is fantastic and only serves to make the play even better.

However, the music occasionally overshadows the actors who sing songs that sometimes the audience can hardly hear.

Volume is always a challenge actors have to conquer, especially in spaces that deaden sound like Harris Theater. However, the volume causes many of the jokes to go unheard, which is a shame since the ones the audience can hear are enough to make the audience squirm in their seats with giggles.

“The Merchant” plays Oct. 31 - Nov. 2 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 2 - Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. at Harris Theater.