Theater: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

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You?ll be taken for a ride in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but you?ll love it. Remember the comedy in musical comedy? Remember well-structured pop songs, not pop-opera, with lyrics down and dirty, yet witty and catchy? Remember still chuckling as you leave the theatre? And, oh, yes, knock-em-dead performances ? it?s all here. Maybe not Class-A Legendary, but a cracking good time.

Once again Broadway has turned to Hollywood for a film to jazz up with music and deliver to a live audience. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, currently playing at the Imperial Theatre, is an adaptation of the 1988 film, previously adapted from a 1964 film, Bedtime Story. With music by David Yazbek, gags fly in every direction from lyrics and dialogue.

Jeffrey Lane?s book tells the story of two con men working in the south of France, each with his own style, each diametrically different from the other. John Lithgow plays Lawrence Jameson, the cool sophisticate, living profitably in a small French town as he charms rich ladies into parting with their money. It?s all out there in his first song, Give Them What They Want. Joanna Gleason, one of his romances, defends her side of things with What Was a Woman to Do?

Norbert Leo Butz portrays the outrageously obnoxious newcomer, Freddy Benson, whose technique is eliciting pity and a few dollars, from sympathetic women. When Freddie sees the swell lifestyle Lawrence enjoys, he pleads to be taken on as an apprentice. Lawrence feels the untidy little interloper is not much more than, as the song says, a Chimp in a Suit. When Freddie, however, threatens to expose his scam, Lawrence agrees to show him a few tricks of the trade.

Their first mark is Jolene Oakes, an Oklahoma heiress played with wacky twang and authority by Sara Gettelfinger. Lawrence woos her and finds she has plans of her own, including marriage and moving back home to Oklahoma. Not for him. He gets himself out of the mess by passing the Freddie off as his atrociously vulgar brother, Ruprecht, challenged in every way. As Laurence comments, ?Every generation has one.? In a hopelessly silly song, All About Ruprecht, the three illustrate his limitations, and Jolene ditches the marriage plans.

Lawrence and Freddie soon realize that the town is too small for two grifters, so they make a bet on the next pigeon that comes along. The first to bilk her out of $50,000 wins, and the other must find a new territory.