“Saying that Tom Stoppard wrote a witty play when he wrote “The Real Inspector Hound” is like saying that there are various colors in nature. It’s an understatement of mammoth proportions. In fact, Stoppard’s wit in “The Real Inspector Hound” comes on so quickly and completely, the farce immediately tumbles into nonstop, high-octane entertainment. And right under the chaos, a vibrant intelligence is at work. “The Real Inspector Hound,” at MetroStage, is a play within a play. In its first scene, we meet two critics, Birdboot (Michael Tolaydo) and Moon (Ralph Cosham). They are watching a show, criticizing a particularly bad whodunit of the sort Agatha Christie might write, where all the guests at Muldoon Manor are trapped with no way out. The radio keeps announcing that a murderer is on the loose.
In addition to his hilarious send-up of such plays, Stoppard’s creation of Moon and Birdboot is brilliant. He portrays both critics as pretentious in their own ways. The pompous Moon lapses into French and Latin and uses 25-cent words whenever he can. Birdboot is a womanizer and is smitten by one of the actresses in the cast but refuses to admit his marital infidelity.
| Onstage |
| ‘The Real Inspector Hound’ |
| Where: MetroStage, 1201 North Royal St., Alexandria |
| When: 8 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 5 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 3 and 7 p.m. Sundays through May 29 |
| Info: $45 to $50; 800-494-8497; BoxOfficeTickets.com, metrostage.org |
In the second act of “Hound,” Stoppard gets more analytical about the difference between onstage and offstage reality and where the two collide. When the telephone onstage rings incessantly, Birdboot answers it only to find that it is his wife. He is then drawn into the play, taking the place of one of the characters. Moon also becomes part of the play, again destroying the illusion of the fourth wall between actors and audience.
MetroStage has assembled a talented cast to make this “Hound” successful. Cosham and Tolaydo are particularly good as Moon and Birdboot, respectively. Catherine Flye gives a delightfully dry interpretation of the humorless housekeeper, Mrs. Drudge. Emily Townley and Kimberly Gilbert are excellent as Cynthia and Felicity, both vying for the same man.
Daniel Pinha creates an effective set for the play within a play. Moon and Birdboot sit on red upholstered theater seats upstage on a raised platform. Behind them is a screen showing other theatergoers observing the play, which is performed downstage.
Everything in “The Real Inspector Hound” is exaggerated and director John Vreeke has capitalized on that. He plays up the silliness of the drama that Moon and Birdboot are reviewing by emphasizing its melodramatic nature, having the action stop when regular death threats are made. The actors freeze, classical music plays.
Lighting designer Brian Allard captures the actors in those moments, reinforcing the staccato nature of old-fashioned playwriting and helping demonstrate Stoppard’s extraordinary ability to satirize human nature, society, theater and life itself.
