By Ann Piccininni
Daily Herald Correspondent
Posted Friday, February 02, 2007

Wheaton Drama’s production of “See How They Run” opens at 8 p.m. Friday for a 15-performance run at Wheaton Playhouse 111, 111 N. Hale St., Wheaton.

For director Annie Walker-Bright of Wheaton, it is inspiring a case of déjà vu.

“I was in it 31 years ago. It was actually my first part I had with Wheaton Drama,” Walker-Bright said.

The origin of the show, written by Philip King, goes back even further than that.

“It was first performed in London in the ’40s. I was brought up in that era,” said Walker-Bright, whose Irish family settled in England when she was a young child.

As World War II came to an end, Walker-Bright said comedy was in demand and farce, a stripe of comedy typified by mistaken identities, incorrect assumptions and strategically-timed, fatefully-executed entrances and exits, grabbed hold.

“It was a simple time after a very bad time. You had to laugh. Otherwise, you were going to slit your wrists,” she said. “When theater came back after the war, everybody was ready to laugh. Theater was very, very light. The farce really came into its own. It’s a very different genre, the farce. The actors are so deadly serious. They’re not acting to get laughs.”

Only the audience is in on the ludicrous truth, while the characters remain oblivious.

The stage play, which enjoyed a London revival last summer, revolves around an English vicarage, where a colorful collection of people meet.

One of those people is Clive, an American serviceman stationed in Britain, played by Wheaton actor Tony Farruggio.

“Clive is the only American. I’m the only non-Brit in the show,” Farruggio said.

“I show up and lot of the trouble that happens is because of my arrival. It’s sort of typical farce mishaps. It’s a little more difficult than I would have thought, going in, to do farce. You have to play the situation seriously, even though it’s a ridiculous situation.”

“It’s sometimes difficult not to stray into slapstick,” Walker-Bright said. “There’s a very fine line.”

Walker-Bright has acted in many of the community theater troupe’s shows and has added directing to her theater repertoire.

“This is my sixth directing job,” she said. “I’ve acted in a lot of plays, too.”

She enjoys the enormous challenge of directing, which includes working with sound, lights, props and even costumes.

“It’s a wonderful, unique experience,” she said. “You have to cover every aspect of a production.”

While “See How They Run” is an older script, Walker-Bright said it works.

“It’s incredibly dated … but it’s very funny,” she said. “I’ve got a great cast.”

She also credits her able crew.

“If you haven’t got a good crew, it’ll fall right around your ears,” she said.

Though most of the cast adopts faux British accents for their parts, Walker-Bright, whose own speech features an authentically British sound, said she doesn’t push her actors to achieve perfect British diction.

“I don’t like to come down on that too hard because (then) they’re concentrating on the accents, not the acting,” she said.

Farruggio, who plays the only American character in the show, doesn’t have to be concerned at all with altering his speaking voice. And, he said, he isn’t at all concerned about bringing his three young children to the show.

“There’s nothing in the show that would make it anything but a G-rating,” he said.

Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, this Friday to Feb. 25. Tickets are $13 for Thursday and $16 for all the other shows.

For details, visit www.wheatondrama.org or call (630) 260-1820.