Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor —

When Tim Hedgepeth first saw A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder in New York a few years ago, he felt like the odd man out in the jovial theater crowd around him.

“People were screaming with laughter and I was just chuckling,” he recalled the other day. “A woman turned toward me and said, ‘Isn’t this the funniest thing you have ever seen?”

He couldn’t quite agree with her. Am I missing something here? He wondered.

But when, more recently, he read the script for the musical that won 4 Tony Awards in 2014, Hedgepeth had a big change of heart. “As I read through it, I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I think I was cold and not in the right frame of mind that night in New York.”

And he has not stopped laughing. As the director of the San Antonio premiere of the show at the Public Theater, Hedgepeth has spent weeks rehearsing and exploring all the angles of the farcical play with a cast of 11 “completely committed” actors.

“I am thrilled to be working with this cast,” he said. “The caliber of talent is very high, and the show is an outrageously funny comedy. People love to laugh, and this is a farce crafted by a gifted writer, tight and hilarious, and has great songs, too.”

Based on the 1907 novel, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, and written for the stage by Robert L. Freedman – with a musical score by Steven Lutvak – A Gentleman’s Guide is the story of a poor young Englishman, Monty Navarro, who discovers that his late mother was a rejected member of the aristocratic D’Ysquith  family, which suddenly makes him the ninth in line to inherit the title  – and the properties – of the Earl of Highhurst. When he shares the news with the young woman he loves, Sibella, she points out the obvious, namely that eight people would have to die before he could become Earl of Highhurst. Being an ingenious fellow, Monty starts to make plans to remove the eight obstacles standing in his way.

And that’s where the laughs start rolling in. One by one, the D’Ysquith family members meet their end through accidents, a bee attack, an unintentional self-inflicted gunshot, poison, and so on.

“It’s a very pointed satire about the British upper crust of that time,” noted Hedgepeth. “The D’Ysquith family represents the worst attributes of the entitled aristocracy.”

What makes this mayhem even funnier is that a single actor – Andy Meyers – portrays all the murder victims, both male and female. To accomplish that, he must be a quick-change artist who not only dons different attires for each part but changes accents and mannerisms as well. Sometimes, he has only 18 seconds to accomplish the transformation, with a help of a dresser waiting for him backstage.

“I have been in a fair number of British farces before but I have never played so many characters in one show,” he said. “I was terrified at first.”

He credits Hedgepeth for helping him create the defining traits of each character, including an elderly clergyman, a female philanthropist “of a certain age,” a young arrogant D’Ysquith who told Monty to get lost, and all the others. Needless to say, the physical comedy skills needed are considerable. At the end of rehearsals, his body “feels it,” said Meyers, because “I use my body differently for each role.” To keep himself hydrated, he keeps drinking water throughout the day. “It’s like I am training for a marathon,” he quipped.

Meyers also prepared himself for his tour-de-force performance by watching “Jane Austen-type movies” as well as Downton Abbey to observe the body language and behavior of different classes of people from the early 20^th century period.

Both Meyers and Hedgepeth spoke highly of Lutvak’s music and overall style of the musical. Meyers described the latter as “Carol Burnett meets Gilbert & Sullivan,” and both noted that the score includes lovely ballads – almost operetta style – as well as fast patter numbers.

Hedgepeth strongly recommends paying attention to the clever lyrics that are not there to just serve the song but also to advance the overall narrative. He likes the music’s “olden” sound, a bit like Cole Porter, or like My Fair Lady; and yes, Gilbert and Sullivan.“Beautiful melodies,” he said, “not brassy” like in new musicals. He also added that the entire cast have gorgeous voices.

Monty Navarro is portrayed by guest artist Chaz Ingraham, a New York-based actor who has appeared at the Public before, while Monty’s two love interests – yes, two, one of them a D’Ysquith cousin – are played by Emily Evans and Mary Malaney.

The veteran music director, Jane Haas, is once again leading the singers and the orchestra, and Paige Berry is the choreographer who keeps everyone moving in style.

“I promise, it will be a wonderful evening at the theater,” said Meyers. 
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Opens Jan. 31, runs through Feb. 23, 2020, Public Theater of San Antonio, San Pedro Ave. at Ashby Pl., Tickets are $20-$45; box office 210-733-7258 or go to thepublicsa.org