The Keegan Theatre’s UNNECESSARY FARCE is the comedy we all need in these troubling times. Written by Paul Slade Smith and adroitly directed by Ray Ficca, this D.C. premiere will make you really, truly, laugh. Noah Schaefer as cop Eric opens the show with skillful physical comedy. Eric and Billie (Jenna Lawrence), two inexperienced cops, are tasked with manning
With one two-act-long scene, eight loudly slamming doors, and countless head-over-heels tumbles, Unnecessary Farce by Paul Slade Smith makes its hilarious D.C. premiere at the Keegan Theatre. Directed by Ray Ficca, this true-to-style farce tails two stumbling undercover cops in their attempts to expose an embezzling mayor and in the process crashes headlong into a mafia ring, a
The performers make the most of it. The characters who are supposed to engage our sympathy — [Noah] Schaefer as Eric and [Jenna] Lawrence as Billie — eventually do so, notwithstanding that their characters appear to have the IQs of toasters. (Lawrence does an outstanding bit where she rapidly translates the hit man’s incomprehensible Scottish
January 4, 2018: The Keegan Theatre opens 2018 with the Washington, DC premiere of Paul Slade Smith’s award-winning stage comedy, UNNECESSARY FARCE. Opening on January 23, this delightfully hilarious comedy is directed by Ray Ficca and features actors Jon Townson, Noah Shaefer, Mario Baldessari, Karen Novack, Emily Levey, Jenna Lawrence, and Christopher Herring. Ray Ficca most recently appeared
Decades before Saturday Night Live, Caesar and company were inventing political sketch comedy. The writers faced network pressures to dumb down the show, as well as a growing right-wing political climate fueled by Senator Joe McCarthy. Laughter on the 23rd Floor is based on Simon’s 30 Rock–esque experiences on the show.
Who knew that Keegan Theatre, a company better known for staging Irish and American melodramas, and more recently musicals, could dive into Simon at his shtickiest and come up trumps.
An extended act of hero worship masquerading as a laff riot, Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor is filled with one-liners, peopled entirely by folks who either write or want to write jokes…
…think how funny “30 Rock” would be if it included some of the extraordinary 1950s comics who wrote for Caesar, like Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks.
It will undoubtedly make you laugh–and also think a little, too. The production has that certain “I don’t know what” about it that one always hopes to have at the theatre.
Do you want a laugh every 30 seconds?
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