AUBURN — “Boeing Boeing” is a stage comedy from a different time and a different place. For a couple weekends it has found a good fit in L-A with a fine Community Little Theatre cast.
The show is packed with laughs and an abundance of action when three alluring airline hostesses land at the same time at a Paris playboy’s flat. A set with seven on-stage doors is barely enough to contain the non-stop action.
Renee Mahon Davis delivers a delightful portrayal of Berthe, Bernard’s maid who frowns on the Parisian-style shenanigans. Davis has participated in CLT’s productions over the past 40 years.
None of Bernard’s fine-tuned planning would work without Berthe’s complicity. She has to make the apartment ready for the arrival of each of Bernard’s ladies.
Christopher Hodgkin, plays Bernard, an unflappable Parisian who juggles a precarious apartment-guest schedule for the landings and take-offs of the trio of airline hostesses. He was last seen as Taylor in CLT’s production of “Prelude to a Kiss” this past season.
Bernard has an admirably logical arrangement schedule for his three fiancées that has been running very smoothly … until the airlines change to faster jets and the schedules threaten to overlap. It’s inevitable that more than one fiancée will wind up in the apartment at the same time.
This is Chad Jacobson’s second appearance in a CLT production. He gives a spot-on comic portrayal of Robert, an American friend who is astounded by Bernard’s audacious ingenuity. Jacobson played the wise-cracking Donkey in the 2017 production of “Shrek the Musical.”
The three stewardesses (a German, an Italian and an American) are portrayed by Heather Marichal, Savannah Irish and Emily Grotz. They are all engaged to Bernard, and each is unaware of the others.
Marichal appeared in CLT’s “9 to 5,” “Nunsense,” “Hairspray” and “Spamalot.”
Irish is making her debut on CLT’s stage. She has numerous theatrical credits and an internship with Walt Disney Company in Orlando, Florida.
Grotz, a senior theatre major at the University of Southern Maine, has appeared in their productions of “Under Milk Wood,” “The Language Archive,” and “Twelfth Night.” She portrayed Abigail William’s in CLT’s production of “The Crucible.”
Under the capable direction of Eileen Messina, a veteran CLT director, and Mark Hazard, assistant director, all of the actors in “Boeing Boeing” turn in admirable performances. It adds up to a fine mid-winter show that takes us back to the “swinging sixties.”
A skilled crew and back-stage team is also essential to the show’s success. Among the unseen workers for “Boeing Boeing” are Jean Mack, stage manager, assisted by Sophie Messina. They manage some fast and furious action.
The stewardess uniforms in bright primary colors of red for Italy’s L’Italia Airline, blue for America’s TWA, and gold for Germany’s Lufthansa Airlines are the fine work of costumer Lysanne Doucette.
Bill Hamilton is set design and construction coordinator, and it took a team of 13 workers to come up with a set with numerous doors, all of which play important roles in this play.
Attractive set decor is by Lynn O’Donnell, producer of the show.
“Boeing Boeing” is a classic French farce written by Marc Camoletti. This play ran for seven years and 2000 performances in its debut London production, setting the Guinness Book of Records mark for “most performed French play worldwide.”
Performances of “Boeing Boeing” are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 18-20; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 21.
Great Falls Performing Arts Center is at 30 Academy St. For tickets call the box office at 207-783-0958 or go online to www.laclt.com.
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