Jeff Irving as Bertie Wooster and Damien Atkins as Jeeves in 'Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense.'Michael Cooper/Supplied
- Title: Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense
- Written by: Robert Goodale and David Goodale, from the works of P.G. Wodehouse
- Performed by: Damien Atkins, Jeff Irving and Travis Seetoo
- Director: Brendan McMurtry-Howlett
- Company: Shaw Festival
- Venue: Court House Theatre
- City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
- Year: Runs until Oct. 10
There’s a certain kind of play that appears with some regularity in Ontario’s summer theatres. These plays are amusing but not often laugh-out-loud funny; they’re brisk in pace, but seldom especially gripping in their storytelling. In the moment, they’re a perfectly adequate way to kill a few hours, but they don’t tend to possess much staying power beyond the final curtain.
The Shaw Festival is not immune to such programming. Last year’s was Gnit, Will Eno’s quirky take on Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. This year, it’s Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, adapted by brothers Robert and David Goodale from the works of P.G. Wodehouse.
While director Brendan McMurtry-Howlett’s production is attractive and very well-acted, the material is something of a head-scratcher. Adapted most specifically from Wodehouse’s 1938 The Code of the Woosters, the Goodales’ script is wildly episodic as it follows young aristocrat Bertie Wooster (Jeff Irving) and his valet Jeeves (Damien Atkins) through a series of farcical hijinks involving a silver milk jug (or “cow creamer,” as it’s called in the play).
Shaw Festival review: Funny Girl delivers the laughs to fill a post-Hacks void
The end result ought to be funnier than it is. Travis Seetoo skilfully plays a number of secondary roles in quick succession; Atkins, too, excels as Jeeves, with the signature quick wit that should make the actor a contender for the lead role in the inevitable Canadian premiere of Oh, Mary!
Irving, meanwhile, has the tougher job: He’s mostly tasked with being the straight man, contrasting Atkins and Seetoo’s highly physical antics. A few minor accent quibbles aside, he’s winsome in the role.
That leaves the Goodales’ tedious script, which clunks along from scene to scene without much by way of an overarching narrative to string those vignettes together. As such, the story is surprisingly confusing – a play-within-a-play device adds unnecessary padding to a frantic story that already bops and twists like a pinball machine – and despite its relatively tight two-hour runtime, Jeeves & Wooster more often than not feels too long.
McMurtry-Howlett can’t fix a watery script. But he does lean into Jeeves & Wooster’s larger-than-life physical shenanigans, resulting in some of the production’s most satisfying moments. Seetoo plays Roderick Spode, an imposing friend of Wooster’s with a habit of getting taller by the hour, with utter precision: A nifty device with wheels and hand controls allows Seetoo to “grow” with each additional entrance, for instance. (Said device supplies most of the production’s laughs.)
As well, McMurtry-Howlett leans into the absurdity of a story that asks its actors to play multiple people at once: A climactic scene toward the end of the play, for instance, sees Atkins play a man and a woman simultaneously, flipping between characters without so much as a hesitation.
But the Goodales’ script persists. “There are two boring bits,” quips Wooster during the second interlude that sees him get dressed behind an ornate screen – it’s a joke that should be hilarious but isn’t, because there are so very many boring bits in the Goodales’ text.
Sim Suzer’s set and costumes are crisp and appropriately corny (I have a feeling a certain false mustache was designed to malfunction at every performance), and Matt Alfano’s movement direction makes expert use of Seetoo, Atkins and Irving’s existing skills. (Seetoo, in particular, is a gifted tap dancer, an unexpected delight to see in Shaw’s nonmusical programming.)
If you’re an existing fan of Wodehouse, Jeeves & Wooster might work better for you than it did for me. Truly, I hope it does. But for now, I’m left squinting at the title: Perfect Nonsense? Nonsense, sure. But “perfect?” I don’t think so.