Theater Review: Don't Dress for Dinner

Spencer Kayden is the Charm in this Sequel to Boeing Boeing
By Lauren Yarger
I've got to give credit to playwright Marc Camoletti. His plays might not be all that charming themselves (after all, just how funny are we supposed to think stupid women and men taking advantage of them are), but a few of his characters are the type that a skilled comedic actor can rip into and make their own.

Mark Rylance went on to a Tony Award win for his turn as hapless Robert caught in between his airplane pilot friend Bernard and the three stewardesses he has stowed away in his Paris flat in Boeing Boeing, and now Spencer Kayden gets to shine as a cook hired to cater another of Bernard's affairs in the play's sequel, Don't Dress for Dinner produced on Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company. She just won the Outer Critics Circle award and is up for the Tony. She deserves it.

In Camoletti's farce, adapted by Robin Hawdon, it's 1960 and Bernard (Adam James) is married to Jacqueline (Patricia Kalember), who won the stewardess contest in Boeing Boeing, and they live in their quiet converted barn outside of Paris (John Lee Beatty, design). Believing his wife is off to visit her mother Bernard arranges a weekend tryst with buxom mistress, Suzanne (Jennifer Tilly). Just like old times, he tries to cover the plot with a visit from Robert (Ben Daniels), but Jacqueline decides to stay home when she hears he is coming -- she and Robert are secretly involved with each other too. Kayden's character, Suzette, is hired to cater for this fiasco, but is mistaken for Suzanne and assumes the role of Robert's mistress to throw off suspicion. Many other cases of mistaken or assumed identity ensue, all needing explanation when Suzette's husband, George (David Aron Damane), shows up.

Kayden makes the tediously long double entendre all worth sitting through. She's a hoot, mastering physical humor and comedic timing. William Ivey Long provides a terrific break-away costume that helps her in one bit and dresses straight-man Kalember in some interesting frocks as well.

Director John Tillenger isn't able to get the same natural comedy out of the other actors, however, and some of the other physical pranks look too staged.

Do dress, get some dinner, then see Spencer Kayden in Don't Dress for Dinner through June 17 at the at the American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd St., NYC. Tickets: 212-719-1300; www.roundabouttheatre.org.

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-- Adultery