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The set had to be sleek. It had to be slick. It had to be pretty, mid-century Paris.
And it had to have seven doors.
They are a character unto themselves in Marc Camoletti’s classic farce “Boeing-Boeing,” and Michael Disher had no problem telling his six actors just that.
“I told the cast the other day, ‘You realize, the seventh character is the doors. And, right now, the doors are upstaging you. So you better get with it,’” he recalled during a telephone interview.
“I’ve always been tough. I think it has changed a bit in that, as I’ve gotten older and as the times have become a little more unsettled, I feel we have more of a responsibility to deliver entertainment—and I really consider it a responsibility. So, yeah, I’ve got high standards, I really do.”
This is Mr. Disher’s signature temperament. A phone call with him typically starts with a tongue-in-cheek “stressed, overworked, frustrated, bedraggled old director,” as he described himself with a laugh.
But, five minutes in, that persona fades away, and in its place a palpable passion enters, as does the calling he feels as an agent of the theater who has considered Center Stage his own for the last decade.
“No, no, no—I’m all good. I’m actually very happy with this season,” he relented. “We wanted to put together something that would really entertain people, give them a lot of comedy, because I think we need a lot of comedy now—fictitious comedy, not real-life comedy.”
Of all the theatrical genres, Mr. Disher said he finds comedy to be the hardest to do well, which is likely why he did not choose to kick off his decade-long tenure at the Southampton Cultural Center that way. Instead, he put up a musical—“The Fantasticks”—which would go on to be the first of his 43 eventual productions.
At that time, Southampton College had just closed, and Mr. Disher, the former head of the theater department there, was left without a home. “The Fantasticks” would simply be a trial run, with just a few platforms on stage and a swath of uncomfortable chairs for the audience.
“I never expected it to grow over the years into something that I would like to think is a community industry. No, it does not feel like it’s been 10 years,” he said. “Time is so relevant and irrelevant to me now. I used to listen to my folks and my grandparents, who would say, ‘Well, as you get older, time goes much more quickly.’ And I’m, like, ‘How can that happen? Time is time.’ And yet it is true. It is true.”
When thinking on the new Center Stage season, Mr. Disher said the circa-1960 “Boeing-Boeing” came to him out of nowhere. He doesn’t know how he selected it, or why—but he did.
The farce, which holds the status of being the most produced French play in the United States, revolves around a bachelor named Bernard who couldn’t be happier—and for good reason. Studiously avoiding marriage, he has not one but three fiancées, all beautiful stewardesses on competing airlines who never overlap. Until the advent of the Boeing 747, that is, which increases travel speed.
“So, yes, the stewardesses begin to overlap, and the chaos ensues. And it’s just delightful,” Mr. Disher said. “There are six actors, seven doors, two acts and complete chaos. We’re at the point now—we just got the doors up yesterday, hence my frustration—where we’re timing every single door opening and closing simultaneously, which is difficult. It’s what I call ‘door choreography.’ Ever dance with a door? Ain’t easy.”
The play lives and breathes on its feet, not on the page, Mr. Disher said, and in order to pull it off, the cast needs to be “as fast as a Boeing 747.” Mr. Disher noted that every actor has worked with him previously, some dating back to his Southampton College days. “So they knew what they were getting into,” he deadpanned.
“Comedy is a responsibility right now and, boy, do we need it,” he said. “I think people need it. I think people just need to laugh. The news is so dreary, on a daily basis, and we’re just bombarded with it. So, please, come to the theater for two hours, divorce yourself from anything of any consequence and just lighten yourselves.
“That’s not to make the whole endeavor heavy-handed,” he continued. “As I’ve known throughout the years, theater can be such a sociological indicator of what is happening within the times. Playwrights pen what they know as its happening, and sometimes you have to go back to period pieces, you have to go back to simpler times to remind people that things were okay, and that things can be okay again.”
“Boeing-Boeing” will open on Friday, October 20, at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Cultural Center, 25 Pond Lane, Southampton Village. Additional performances will be held on Thursdays and Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m., through November 5. Tickets are $25 and $15 for students. For more information, call 631-287-4377 or visit scc-arts.org.
on Oct 17, 2017