The shipwreck that deposits both upper and serving classes onto a remote island changes everything, of course. But at the outset of J.M. Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton, we have pampered, wearisome, and condescending upper classes doing pointless lives. Yes, the Earl of Loam, played innocent and appealingly decent by David Schurmann, has a “servants” day when roles are reversed, but the seven uppers have no idea who the sixteen lowers who cater to them are or what the world in which they dwell is like, and their disdain for the servants prevails.
And the thought of only one maid for three daughters is treated as a catastrophe. After all, “how should we know it is morning if there is no one to pull up the blinds?” On the island, where the upper classes become even more ridiculous, old habits die hard and Kyle Blair’s precisely realized Ernest remains rude, selfish, spoiled to the max, and must be kept in line. He would even steal his elderly uncle’s boots. Meanwhile Mr. Treherne, played quietly effectively by Martin Happer as a man with a sense of inherent dignity, remains the voice of civility and reason.
After two years, there are many signs of innovation on the island, all by Crichton, the former household butler, who naturally – or by rule of nature? – is the head honcho. The once pampered Mary, played vigorously jungle wild by Nicole Underhay is now a true creature of the “natural” world. She kills for food, gives an animated account of her hunt, even beats her chest in a send up of savage self-assertion. The other young ladies now compete for their leader Crichton’s attention and approval, while Crichton, who’s become the “superior breed,” is now served at table where he can be fussy about food prepared for him by his former superiors.
The language spoken is hilariously “natural” and Crichton’s proposal to Mary goes like this: “I have grown to love you. Are you afraid to mate with me?” When the rescue ship arrives Crichton knows he “has got to play the game again.” The fact that truth belongs to the upper class is soon hit home, especially when in his published account of life on the island, Ernest claims Crichton’s resourcefulness and achievements as his own. Seeing old island habits dying hard is quite funny with the sisters now seated in a most unladylike fashion.
Among the performances David Schurmann ably plays the Earl as a man of naïve optimism about social equality, a man who has never inhabited the lower end of society. The ideal of Steven Sutcliffe’s Crichton is that everyone is kept in his place and Crichton here, albeit in his accepted subservience, is an intriguing man of authority, especially since Sutcliff can command the stage with inherently charming ease. Crichton is not an old stuffy we might expect, but more of a young stuffy with the saving grace of a mysterious fire burning through him. Marla McLean’s Tweeny is something of an Eliza Doolittle who works indoors. She is happily full of “vulgar ways and Mclean neatly suggests her inner development over time, from London to island.
In Morris Panych’s production, we do have a sense of a delicate and humorous play in colorful musical wrapping to make it please more. It is certainly an entertaining show and we have a wolf and a crow as singing narrators, with dance numbers and songs from the 20s interspersed throughout. We tap our toes as we wonder what Barrie’s play, without the compelling but perhaps irrelevant goodies Panych has added, a song by Irving Berlin say, might be. Still, this is a cast that styles each character with theatrically rich touches and it’s hard not to go with the flow and the show.
