'Butler Didn't' doesn't serve Metropolis well

There are certainly laughs to be had in “The Butler Didn't,” the first original main stage play in the regular season of the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights. Unfortunately, though, this world premiere farce by Palatine playwright Scott Woldman is a letdown.

That the Metropolis called upon Woldman to create a new farce is a hubris-tempting decision, since knockabout farces are notoriously difficult to create and pull off convincingly. For a farce to truly work, all the crazy characters and silly subplots must be juggled in perfectly timed balance through all the expected prerequisites of multiple door slamming and lots of over-the-top gesticulating.

Although Woldman fills “The Butler Didn't” with outrageous comic situations, they don't logically flow together into a cohesive whole. Brad Dunn's direction of the show is also sloppy, with many characters who don't logically react to glaring inconsistencies within their line of vision (like a displaced wall painting or people obviously hiding behind the couch).

“The Butler Didn't” borrows plot elements from the 1989 film comedy “Weekend at Bernie's” and the Puccini opera “Gianni Schicchi” to tell the tale of two debt-riddled jewel thieves who are repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to steal from ailing North Shore billionaire Ezekiel Podmore (David Belew).

Rick (Michael B. Woods) is working from the inside by posing as Podmore's recently hired British butler, while Ernesto (Richard Perez) is unhappily pushed into playing a landscape gardener (a disguise that he finds to be racist and demeaning).

But forget about those jewels, since Woldman clumsily changes this thieving pair's main motivation from stealing to altering Podmore's last will and testament midway through the play. As for other characters, they often don't feel genuine or consistent even for an exaggerated farce.

For example, Chris Warren's take on Officer Pratchett is unbelievably low-key for a policeman responding to a phoned-in robbery report in a pricey neighborhood. Woldman also pushes the character offstage into the kitchen at one point to suit the plot mechanics rather than finding a believable motivation or reason why he stays in there — not even bothering to react to all of the shouting in the next room.

There's also the incompetent and elderly Dr. Becker (Chuck Sisson), who somehow manages to find a pulse on a pushed-around corpse.

Woldman won't win any points from feminists for his female characters, either. They include Podmore's gold-digging second-wife Cassie (Jackie Trabilsy), Podmore's greedy grown daughter Laura (Michelle Weissgerber) and the easily seducible lawyer Anna (Elizabeth Dowling). These women all turn out to be either money-grubbing schemers or big-time bimbos (or both).

What good there is to be found in “The Butler Didn't” comes from the polished performances of its two leading men. Woods uses his lanky limbs and bulging blue eyes to great comic effect as the harried title butler, while Perez luxuriates in all the humor drawn from Ernesto's righteous indignation and politically correct questioning. The inexhaustible energy of these two men keeps the show afloat, even if they can't cover up all the play's other faults.

While you can get away with a lot of extreme behavior and loopy logic in a farcical comedy, “The Butler Didn't” just doesn't make its case in terms of consistency or getting the little details down right.