A Lingerie Play With Class and Sass

By Roland Finger
Staff Writer
Director Tucker Lucas wants to heat up your winter nights with one funny and hot play, “The Underpants,” Steve Martin’s adaptation of a German farce. It’s the story about a beautiful young wife, Louise, whose husband has been neglecting her because he’s obsessed with his macho image, career, and authority. The husband, Theo, insults his wife and takes her for granted, complaining that the floor is dirty, the dishes are piled up, and the meals are not perfect. At times you might want Louise to turn into Hedda Gabler, but the play avoids tragedy by staying quite hilarious, smoothly working in risqué jokes and cute innuendo.
This is a perfect date play because your presence at the theatre proves that you care about your partner. Go ahead and hold hands during the play. Kiss during the intermission. You are not stricken with the flaws of the plays unhappily married couple, Louise and Theo. You are not lost in your own imagination like the poet in the play, Versati, the supposedly oversexed Italian lover, played with panache by Marty Fankhanel. You are not consumed with jealousy like the impotent Jewish character, Cohen.
The cast is ideal. J. J. Gordon really convinces you that he is Theo Maske, the distant husband who in our day would be obsessed with TV sports and would expect his wife to keep the hot wings and beer coming. He’s oblivious, pompous, and thoroughly unappealing, just the way he should be. Gordon is a good actor, able to achieve a pressure-cooker red face at will. He starts the play by fixating on his wife’s faux pas, a pair of naughty underpants that fell off while she was stretching upward to see at a parade.
Why did those panties come down? It wasn’t just a loose string. Those panties wanted to drop because they symbolize Louise’s unacknowledged passions. Maren Jystad-Spar plays Louise with great range, charm, and beauty, showing a wife trying to break out of the bars of a celibate, humdrum marriage. But the plays ridicule manages to stay light. Louise is love-deprived by a lame husband who blames her for having a rebellious body that attracts looks from other men. He claims that her breasts have a will and voice of their own, but Mr. Bourgeois Convention himself, Theo, does not speak his wife’s body’s language. He is unaware that he is alienating Louise, not that he would care anyway. He wants a servant, not a wife. Any woman who has wanted more appreciation from a partner will relate to Louise.
The neighbor, Gertrude, also is repressed. She lives vicariously through her friend, Louise, pushing her toward an affair, by providing the shiny tools of seduction—sexy undergarments. Gertrude is also eager and hot to trot but lacks confidence. The male-controlled society has taken a heavy toll on this plays women.
It’s a wonderful farce. Word spreads about Louise’s underpants, and single men line up to rent the vacant room in Louise’s apartment. The husband only sees how much money he can make from renters because he lives in his own self-absorbed, shallow world.
Will there be adultery? Will the husband find out? Will men fight over Louise? Can Louise acquire independence in a patriarchal culture? Will the erection jokes keep rising? What do those panties really look like? How far will the play go? Will anyone be sexually satisfied? All, and I really mean all, will be revealed. You will not be disappointed.

IF YOU GO:
What: “The Underpants” by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin
Where: Theatre B, 716 Main in Fargo, ND
When: Feb. 3-26, Thursday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Curtain, and Sunday, 2 p.m. Curtain
Info: 701-729-8880

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