Don’t Drink the Water, Woody Allen’s Cold War farce set in the American Embassy of an unnamed country behind the Iron Curtain, first hit stages in 1966. This midterm season, from Oct. 17 to 26, Mask & Bauble’s adaptation succeeds in bringing the script’s comic relief alive for harried students. Its madcap ensemble includes a magician priest, three tourists from New Jersey running from the communist police, and the fumbling son of a famous diplomat, protagonist Axel Magee. When Axel’s father puts him in charge of a short trip, chaos ensues—Woody Allen style.
Well-meaning Axel Magee, played by Nick Norberg (COL ‘16), fumbles around causing disaster after disaster. According to producer Nora Genster (SFS ’16), Axel is “everything Georgetown students strive not to be.”
Director Joe Madsen (COL ‘14) hopes we learn a lesson from him.
“I hope that Georgetown students get that they don’t need to take things too seriously all of the time,” he said.
Norberg’s enthusiasm is key in sending this message to the audience, and the rest of the cast is not far behind. Among them, Walter Hollander, played by Matthew Grisier (COL ‘16), epitomizes the idiot abroad with more silly one-liners than anyone else in the play, pulling off the curmudgeonly New Jersey caterer with panache.
Supporting actors Albert Scerbo (COL ’15) and Nick Phalen (SFS ’16) nail comic, stereotypical Eastern European accents in their roles as Krojak, the passionate communist policeman, and Priest Drobney, who has been locked in the American embassy for six years. Phalen is adept at using his long body to make any situation hilariously awkward, whether attempting magic tricks or climbing tables.
Allen is great at writing dynamic male characters, but he’s less adept with women. Still, Maddie Kelly (COL ’16) is charming as a lovelorn youth specializing in silly eyelash-batting. Alice Neave’s (COL ‘16) portrayal of Killroy—the killjoy embassy secretary—proves hilarious. In a great example of the power of physical comedy, Claire Derriennic (COL ‘17) spoke little but flurried around the stage as the eternally attentive assistant Ms. Burns. Her scurrying brought more laughs than some of Allen’s best lines.
What stands out in this production is the costuming, blocking, and set design. Costume designer Audrey Denis (SFS ’15) nails Mr. Hollander’s outfit with a Hawaiian shirt, awkward shorts, white orthopedic shoes, and a bucket hat.
“The reason the wallpaper looks so atrocious, the reason there’s a jackelope sitting center stage, is because we were going for something just a little off and weird,” stage manager Michael Donnay (COL ’16) said. The topsy-turvy design adds to the claustrophobia of being stuck in an embassy. It’s an anything goes environment that carried the show, thanks to the great work of set designer Sam Buckley (COL ’14).
Slapstick requires great blocking, good effects, absurdist set and props, and most of all, creativity and silliness from all those involved. These details come together to give Don’t Drink the Water a professional quality and laughs accessible to all. The blocking was comprised of “a lot of ideas that we came up with on our own, which played out beautifully, in my opinion,” said Madsen. I can’t disagree.
This is not the first time Mask & Bauble has produced a Woody Allen play. In the fall of 1982, M&B presented an evening of one acts by Woody Allen: “Death Knocks,” directed by Peter Doragh; “Death,” directed by Joe Banno; and “God,” which I directed. (Much of the text of “Death” was later incorporated into Allen’s film, “Shadows and Fog.”) I hope I get a chance to see this new production.
There’s a typo in my comment above. The one-act program was in the fall of 1978, not 1982. Thirty-five years affects one’s memory.
“Allen is great at writing dynamic male characters, but he’s less adept with women.”
Tell that to all the women he got nominated for Oscars, Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Mariel Hemingway, Dianne Wiest, Judy Davis, Jennifer Tilly, Mira Sorvino, Samantha Morton, and Penélope Cruz