Like his compatriot at heart, Molière, the playwright Charles Ludlam spent a career honing the art of the farce and using it to skewer his favorite bugaboos. In “Reverse Psychology,” the satirist builds his situational laugh-fest around a pair of psychiatrists and their two patients.
An innocent enough premise — unless both pairs are married, in which case the tension builds at a rapid and zany clip, until all is revealed. That is the beauty of a well-constructed farce: We get so wrapped up in the coincidences and the break-neck pace that our defenses relax at the incredulity of events and we fail to see the inferences until it is too late.
Then the playwright hits us with his best shot, whatever the repercussions may be, showing us that while tragedy delivers the most incisive social criticism, comedy delivers it with the swiftest sword.
In Germinal Stage Denver’s current version of the play, director Ed Baierlein furthers Ludlam’s brilliantly conceived script by casting women in all the roles — except for the dastardly sailor, who, between scenes, rearranges various wooden components for props, and swabs the deck after each succeeding ridiculous encounter produces a greater mess.
Baierlein casts himself in this role in the mold of a circus ringmaster, establishing his authority by emphatically tossing around the furniture, ominously wielding his mop, and sadistically tossing mischief from his pail onto the tigresses who play out Ludlum’s hilarious pretense.
The stakes are clearly defined in the first scene, where Eleanor (Casey Jones), an attractive blond, and Leonard (Deborah Persoff), her dapper paramour, are enjoying themselves under the sheets. The scene takes place in “the sleaziest hotel room” in New York City, indicated by the first in a series of ever-present stage placards.
Jones, in a campy adolescent wardrobe that reflects Eleanor’s psychological immaturity, is delightfully ditzy throughout as only the wife of the self-described, self-deluded stick-figure artist, Freddie, could be.
Persoff, who has shown herself irrepressible in virtually every stage setting in the city, suffuses her trousers role with mirth and, leveraging her gender, a generous subtext of satire.
Over at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the leather-accented Karen (Flavia Florezell) is making moves on Freddie (Concetta Troskie), who talks a good game of art, even if he has no talent.
Troskie’s gravel-voiced, spike- haired, swaggering Freddie fools us completely for a couple of scenes, as she/he soaks in Eleanor’s alluring gifts until we are let in on Baierlein’s joke, turning Elizabethan drama on its head with the wholly distaff ensemble.
Florezell’s empowered, smart and sexy Karen effectively distracts us for almost the entire evening, by which time Ludlam has trapped us in our assumptions, and we are helpless but to accept his razor-sharp commentary on psychiatry and the human condition.
Sallie Diamond’s clever costumes, fun dialect work by all (the Big Apple’s most flavorful boroughs represented), and Baierlein’s inimitably inventive staging leave us laughing.
Bob Bows also reviews theater for Variety, for KUVO/89.3 FM, and for his own website, . He can be reached by email at bbows@coloradodrama.com.
“Reverse Psychology” ***1/2 (out of four stars)
Psycho farce. Presented by Germinal Stage-Denver, 2450 W. 44th Ave. Written by Charles Ludlam. Directed by Ed Baierlein. Starring Casey Jones, Deborah Persoff, Flavia Florezell, Concetta Troskie, and “George Spelvin.” Through July 6. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays. $15. 303-455-7108 or
