SMASH, by Jeffrey Hatcher; based on George Bernard Shaw's novel "An Unsocial Socialist;" directed by Michael Vought; Westminster Players, continues Nov. 9-11 and 16-18 at 7:30 p.m., Jay W. Lees Courage Theatre of the Jewett Center for the Performing Arts, 1250 E. 1700 South. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for children and senior citizens. Box office: 832-2119. Running time: two hours (one intermission).
The play "Smash" begins with a bride and groom alone on the stage.
He's leaving her, he says, although they've only been married half an hour.
He's leaving, although he loves her madly.
He's a socialist, he explains, as well as a millionaire, and if that's not confusing him enough, there's the whole matter of ardor.
"I had hoped marriage might devalue surplus passion . . . " he says.
But his passion has not abated.
Now he realizes a husband would never have the energy to overthrow the British government.
"Smash," written by Jeffrey Hatcher from a novel by George Bernard Shaw and performed this month by the Westminster Players, really is a smashing comedy. Michael Vought directs.
Rory Sandberg is Sidney Trefuss, the socialist. Sandberg shifts smoothly between accents as Sidney the millionaire pretends to be a common laborer at a girl's college, where he hopes to make socialists out of the future wives of the peerage.
Greta Schomburg is compelling in the role of the abandoned wife, Henrietta.
Amber Hamilton is perky as Agatha, Henrietta's cousin, who is a student at the college. Agatha's two girlfriends are played by Jaime Jiles and Jodi Bennett.
Their two suitors are played by Mike Johnson and Tyler Evans. Evans is especially funny as a besotted poet.
Iam Shane is the languid servant, Lumpkin; Rebecca Ray, the steely headmistress; and Jared Thomson is Henrietta's father, a man who seeks ignorance with all his heart.
There is much to laugh at in this production, and yet under the comedy lies foreboding, a sense that the women of Britain will not be as easily influenced as Sidney hopes.
Sure enough, when the revolution comes, it belongs to them.
Sensitivity: Some double entendres.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com