The Butler Does It All

WELL, WHAT'S UP for fun tonight? Monday to Thursday is always off, don't you know. But come to think of it, there is a rather rum do transpiring at a nearish stagger. Jeeves Takes Charge it's called. It's been reconstructed from those books by that Wodehouse fellow, sort of the way you might paste together the torn letters in your lover's dustbin. You can seek it out at the Tasty--no, that's not it--the Hasty Pudding for another two weeks.

The title says it all, so to speak. There's this young cove, Bertie Wooster--a straight chap, if a little fogged sometimes. Now this valet Jeeves drops into the lap of this Wooster and dusts the cobwebs out of his life, dispensing a few useful fashion hints in the process. Not that Wooster doesn't need a firm hand for some get up and go--he can barely adjust his own ascot.

Jeeves and Wooster wander through their affairs, along with two handfuls of friends and associates, but the keen thing about it is all the characters are played by just one Johnnie, an Edward Duke. A definite topper, one in a million. Two of the blokes are actually women, but there's none of that pumps-and-padded foundation farrago.

Twelve roles in two hours might seem a bit draining on the bodily battery juice, but this cove has been hoofing this horse since the turn of the decade, from Australia to Asia by way of Cleveland. In fact, Duke is the one who taped the show together from the words of the Wodehouse chappie.

The show gets right off with Wooster at his club chitchatting with cardboard cutouts. Wooster rambles in and out about his-life-and-so-on until he eventually arrives in the dramatic Promised Land, the arrival of the indespensible Jeeves. The conversation cum soliliquy is punctuated throughout by Wooster's belly laugh, a "MAHAhaha" that would put an armored battalion in retreat.

A quick scene and costume change later, and we're in Wooster's rather flat flat--yes, more cardboard, I'm afraid. Duke as Wooster narrates the historical encounter between himself and Jeeves, who is also himself, that is to say, Edward Duke. Rather confusing, but it's all clear when you see it since Duke shifts between Wooster and Jeeves like Warren Beatty on a double date.

The action soon shifts to Wooster's uncle's estate. Here Duke plays Jeeves, Wooster, Edwin-the-Beastly-Boy-Scout, the Fiance Florence, and Lord Lorpsdon; you hardly know where the fellow will pop up next.

After a 30-second costume change--Duke, poor blighter, is showing his age--scene two pops up, with Reginald Jeeves as official narrator. This scene involves a vacation and a speech to a girls' school full of schoolgirls, and it collects its share of laughs. The picture of the impeccable Jeeves devolving into Wooster or a starched headmistress is, in itself, enough to supply a right humorous air to the scene. The second act is more of this good stuff: a friendly poke at beastly aunts, a discourse on the proper waistcoat, and a drunken tirade shouted by a lovesick newt-fancier at a public school awards ceremony. The whole thing comes to a good old-fashioned musical finish with a bit of tap-dance and "Sonny-Boy".

Duke has niftily navigated around the major iceberg of one man shows, the annoying tendency of audiences to become tired of the actor. By switching characters like the Queen switches hats, he keeps each fresh and chirpy. Duke has simply enormous energy as he cavorts about the stage. His timing lags a bit when he assumes a Jeevesian demeanor, but his Wooster is quite rummy, a perfectly charming chump, and his portrayal of Gussie Fink-Nottle, the newt-lover, is rather amphibious.

So who should see this spectacle, you ask? Newt-lovers, Anglophiles, theatre-niks, comedy fanatics and Wodehouse appreciators should make haste to the Pudding. Marxists, avante-gardists, aunts, and fans of the Three Stooges should flock in the opposite direction. This is not the most cerebral stuff, but then who came here to think?