SummerStage’s Comic Cops Under the Stars

×

Expand

SummerStage Delafield - Unnecessary Farce banner

There are a couple of hotel rooms out in the middle of the park. There’s no ceiling. Only a few walls. It’s a set-up for a sting operation. And it’s a comedy. And since this is a very specific kind of comedy, the staged set for Unnecessary Farce includes quite a few doors. Katie Lynne Krueger charmingly plays the accountant to Mayor Meekly—a man suspected of embezzlement. Christopher Orth and Kara Penrose are great fun as a couple of police officers on a stakeout. Orth is charming as an uneasy cop working with a similarly challenged partner. Penrose is endearingly passionate as the perilously inexperienced rookie who nevertheless clearly has great potential as a detective if she can only master a few of the basics. Things get complicated for everyone involved when the mayor’s personal security guard (Scott Fudali) turns out to be working for a sinister Scottish hitman cleverly played by Logan Milway.

Director Michael Pocaro keeps the comic action of SummerStage of Delafield’s Unnecessary Farce at a respectably high velocity as things get complicated for Mayor Meekly, his wife, his accountant and a couple of police officers. Pocaro manages to keep everything balanced on the comic side thanks to a very well-poised comic cast including a comically precise Tanya Tranberg as the Mayor Meekly’s wife, who might have a bit more going on than meets the eye. Playwright Paul Slade Smith throws together an appealing array of uncomfortable comic elements to keep everything moving without having any of the comedy gracelessly trip over itself for the duration of the show. There’s a pleasantly dizzying kind of levity that’s maintained throughout an enjoyable comedy that starts around sunset and ends under the stars West of Milwaukee.

SummerStage of Delafield’s Unnecessary Farce runs July 18-August 3 at Lapham Peak State Park.  For more information, visit summerstageofdelafield.org/unnecessary-farce.