Buffalo Theatre Ensemble delivers laughs in dated farce 'The Dingdong'

“The Dingdong, or How the French Kiss” - ★ ★ ★

Silly fun abounds in Buffalo Theatre Ensemble's bed-hopping, door-slamming sex farce “The Dingdong, or How the French Kiss.”

Yet die-hard stereotypes abound as well - from an overbearing Italian temptress to gassy, hard-of-hearing elders. Most jarring, however, is the play's blasé take on male sexual entitlement and tit-for-tat female revenge.

No doubt many of these retrograde views stem from the old source of Mark Shanahan's 2016 off-Broadway comedy: Georges Feydeau's 1896 French farce “Le Dindon” (“The Turkey”). In “The Dingdong,” Shanahan's economical English adaptation features just five actors who dash about playing all the roles in an updated 1938 Paris.

Despite being a period piece, the opening scene of “The Dingdong” can be unnerving. In it, a philandering stalker, Pontegnac (Robert Jordan Bailey), forcefully pursues and barges into the home of Lucy Vatelin (Lisa Dawn), wife of the nebbish accountant and eccentric art collector Charles (Brad Lawrence).

Normally this kind of situation would play out like a suspense thriller. But in “The Dingdong,” it's all just aggressive flirtation for Pontegnac and defensive negotiation for Lucy, an uncomfortable scenario given current #MeToo headlines about sexual harassment and abuse.

Pontegnac lays out the play's premise that all married Frenchmen are unfaithful. Later on his wife, Mme. Pontegnac (Kelli Walker), arrives to retaliate with the notion that women are more than justified in having their own dalliances upon discovery of their husbands' infidelities.

These adversarial worldviews end up driving the characters in “The Dingdong.” They're either striving to conceal affairs or seeking to reveal proof of adulterous behavior, or they're on the make to find willing bed partners (notably the case with the unmarried playboy Redillon, as amiably played by Quinn Bayola).

There's not much human depth in “The Dingdong,” but the farce is a technical theatrical joy (and a hectic workout for the cast and crew).

Director Connie Canaday Howard oversees a sterling staging full of precision comic timing and near-miss sexual trysts. The actors all delight while cycling through wacky characters ranging from the jealous Hungarian boxer husband Solignac (Bailey) to sass-talking American dominatrix Mandy (Walker). And though Lawrence only plays Charles, he too impresses by honestly playing up the dramatic stakes of potentially losing Lucy as his loyal wife.

Aiding and abetting the hardworking cast is costume designer Rachel Lambert with choice quick-change period outfits to help delineate who is playing whom. Set designer Pauline Oleksy also provides sturdy scenic frameworks of a bourgeois French home and seedy hotel rooms.

With such strong work from the cast and crew illuminating the onstage shenanigans, there's no question about the genuine laughs produced by “The Dingdong.” Just don't delve too deeply, or risk dwelling on how dated the material seems in 2018.

<b>Location:</b> Buffalo Theatre Ensemble at College of DuPage's McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn, (630) 942-4000 or atthemac.org

<b>Showtimes:</b> 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday; through Oct. 7

<b>Tickets:</b> $40

<b>Running time:</b> About 2 hours including intermission

<b>Parking:</b> Free adjacent lot

<b>Rating:</b> For mature audiences: lots of innuendo and comical sexual situations