So you’re a newlywed in 1900s Germany, and you’ve gone to a parade to see the king. It’s a big deal. Everyone from town is there. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, like an act of God, your tightly drawstringed, old-timey underpants fall down from underneath your skirt. You scoop them up quick as a flash and carry on with your day. And it happened so fast, and was rectified so quickly, and a whole parade was happening, so why would anyone notice or care?
But in The Underpants, Steve Martin’s very-Steve-Martin-y remix of 1910 German play Die Hose, Louise (Gabrielle Scawthorn) and her knickers are the talk of the town.
It’s not even a few hours later when two separate men come to her home and enquire about the room she and her husband Theo (Duncan Fellowes) have available for rent. They couldn’t be more different – one is a sickly barber named Benjamin Cohen (Robin Goldsworthy) – Cohen with a ‘K’, he insists to the clearly anti-Semitic Theo – and the other, an aggressively tanned unpublished poet, Frank Versati (Ben Gerrard). The room is secondary to their intense fascination with, and lust for, Louise.
There are several doors on the set (playfully rendered in bold colours and fussy details by Anna Gardiner) which means you can sense what’s going to happen next: farce. Men chasing women, people hiding, unexpected guests and, of course, comic exits. The men sniff around at Louise, who, quite frankly, never asked for any of this attention and isn’t sure that she wants it. Although, she would like to feel more like a woman – her husband is a nightmare who sees her as dinner-maker and housekeeper (though he’s played drolly and knowingly by Fellowes). Her neighbor Gertrude (Beth Daly) is keen to live through Louise and her potential affair with the handsome lothario Versati, and Daly’s sharply-timed one-liners are the secret weapon of this production.
The play, directed here by Anthony Gooley (best known as an actor on Sydney stages), is pretty much what you’d expect. There’s a lot of shocked faces as old-school propriety is stretched to its limit; broad physical humour; quick-the-husband’s-coming panic; innuendo shot off from the hip. Nothing is subtle or small, which probably is in the production’s favour – the play is slight, all mannered jokes and no deep substance – and Gooley keeps top of mind the fact that poor Louise has been shoved into comic extremity at the whims of men who are obsessed with her body. When we finally slow down, it’s to focus on her in the play’s final moment, and it feels just right.
If you like your comedy broad and straightforward (with a dash of super-slow-motion, comically inept fight scenes), then this could be the palate cleanser you need from the routine of daily life. And it’s a solid production, largely well-presented, though creaky and shaky on the detail. If you’re looking for something to sink your teeth into, this one might not work: The Underpants is old-school and light as meringue – not tart or sweet enough to be the full pavlova, but not a dish to sneeze at.