‘Lend Me a Tenor’ spurs laughter at TLP

MOUNT CARROLL – “Lend Me a Tenor,” opens today at Timber Lake Playhouse.

There are funny plays and then there are ever funnier plays. “Lend Me a Tenor,” by playwright Ken Ludwig, has some built-in genius that guarantees laughs throughout its two acts. It is a door-slamming, quip-sparring farce sure to be mood-elevating by the time the cast of eight whips itself into a frenzy.

Andrew Lloyd Webber produced the show in the 1980s as a farcical take on an eccentric Italian opera star who brings his personal drama to Cleveland, Ohio, for a grand role in “Othello.” The play is set in the ’30s, but timeless in its classic portrayal of jealousy, fainting fans, phony sophistication and goofy characters, famous and infamous.

Chuck Smith, director at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, is in his eighth season at TLP. He is thrilled with this youthful and energetic cast. He loves the zany anxiety of the comedy that asks, “Who’s in the closet or behind the door?” or, “Who wrote that Dear John letter?” As with all comedies, timing is key, Smith says.

This cast seems to have a natural sense of timing with each other. Having been through the wilds of “Grease,” they are falling into each other’s rhythms with ease. Playing the eccentric and temperamental world-famous tenor “Tito,” or “Il Stupendo,” is David Herr, who hails from Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. His rubber facial expressions and instant body language lend a marvelous tenor to the tenor’s role.

Tito’s jealous and Dear John-writing wife, Maria, is played by Jamie Finkenthal, also from the Chicago College of Performing Arts.

Area performer Eli Pauley plays Maggie, a starry-eyed fan of Tito. She faints, swoons and dreams at the drop of a hat. Pauley has been a frequent flyer at the playhouse and many community theater stages. Her memorable and in-depth portrayal of the lead in “The Diary of Anne Frank” at Pec Playhouse as a mere 12-year-old several years ago launched her evolution into a lovely and versatile actress.

Elsewhere in the cast are Maggie’s less-than-sophisticated boyfriend, Max, played by Phil Newman; her nervous father, Henry, played by Justin Verstraete; and a flighty soprano, Diana, played by Sainty Reid. Actress Amanda Hendricks returns to play the opera company’s ex-diva Julia, chairman of the opera guild.