Review: A Noise Within's One Man, Two Guvnors Is a Winner With Kasey Mahaffy

Leading man Kasey Mahaffy’s winning performance in Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors at A Noise Within Theatre a true Los Angeles happening. Manipulating other characters to feed his hunger for food and sex, his buoyant Francis Henshall keeps the belly laughs spilling out for over two hours.

Set in the swinging sixties, Bean’s Mod modernization of Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters is a wild farce of mistaken identity, with slamming doors, flying waiters, and duplicates of everyone. The gluttonous Francis finds himself with two employers, a gangster who should be dead (Christie Coran), and the upper class gentleman who thinks he killed said gangster (Ty Aldridge). While both bosses expect to have their messages sent and tummies filled, starving Francis can’t keep track of any of his duties, which leads to uproarious disasters.

Directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott keep all the cogs moving, so the farce can breathe and still attack. Yet in the play’s major set piece, a dining experience from hell, the direction moves “elderly” waiter Alfie (Josey Montana McCoy) too slowly, so the timing of his multiple pratfalls falls flat.

Mahaffy is effortless, oozing hilarity with every glance and turn of phrase. As the sexually adventurous Dolly, Trisha Miller gives oomph to her sparing scenes with Mahaffy’s Francis. Cassandra Marie Murphy is delightful as the dingbat heiress Pauline, and Paul David Story as her fiancé brings hammy humor to the supercilious actor, Alan. Coran and Aldridge are appropriately hapless as the titular guvnors.

Rod Bagheri and his band are hip mood-setters, jazzing up Grant Olding’s groovy songs. Frederica Nascimento’s sets effectively utilize projections to quickly change from upscale apartments to pub-heavy street corners. Garry Lennon’s retro costumes and Tony Valdes’s wigs transport the audience to  Carnaby Street in ‘60s London. Indira Tyler’s choreography has the cast frugging with Fosse-esque verve.

A mainstay of A Noise Within, Mahaffy always steals the show, whether in contemporary comedies or Shakespearian classics. One Man, Two Guvnors is a perfect vehicle for this masterful comedian.