Clowning at The Cocoanuts

http://osfashland.org/productions/2014-plays/the-cocoanuts.aspx

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's The Cocoanuts demonstrates, paradoxically, the limitations imposed upon the text both by the Marx Brothers' use of film as a medium, and by OSF's use of stage.

The Cocoanuts was originally a Broadway musical written for the Brothers by Irving Berlin and George S. Kaufman (and it's adapted here by Mark Bedard). The Marx Brothers came up in vaudeville, with audience interaction as part of their act. Breaking the fourth wall translates from smaller comedy stages to the big Broadway ones, but doesn't to film. At the same time, Berlin and Kaufman wrote this play for the Marx's clown characters, which limits OSF's clowns (Eduardo Placer, Mark Bedard, Bret Hinkley and John Tufts) with impersonating somebody else's lazzi.

Placer plays Robert Jamison/Zeppo, an aspiring architect making ends meet at the Cocoanuts Hotel while wooing the well-off Polly Potter (Jennie Greenberry). But her staid rich mother, Mrs. Potter (K. T. Vogt) will none of it - she wants Polly to marry the likewise-moneyed Harvey Yates (Robert Vincent Frank). Fortunately for Robert, he's got his employer Mr. Hammer/Groucho (Bedard) in his corner. Oh, Hammer won't pay him his back wages - smart-ass puns instead of amenities do not a solvent hotelier make. But, assisted by Chico and Harpo (Tufts and Hinkley), Hammer instills just enough anarchy to dissolve social distinctions and help this bright-eyed idealist marry the girl of his dreams.

That anarchy includes improvising with the audience, which injects a certain unpredictability that changes the show night to night. What doesn't change are the lazzi, or stock business, of the clowns with the exception of Placer's Zeppo. In the movies, Zeppo Marx is always the straight-man, quite uninteresting compared to his vibrant elder brothers. That blandness gives Placer an opportunity to expand his character's repertoire; a luxury the other three clowns don't have in their responsibility to American comic iconography. This paradox teaches two important lessons about clowning: first, it belongs on stage. Comedy, as a tool of subversion and anarchy, thrives on the unpredictability of direct interaction with the audience. But even semi-rigid texts like Bedard's adaptation of Berlin and Kaufman, not to mention the iconographic legacy of Groucho, Chico and Harpo, limits the anarchy.

The paradox is that the stage allows freedom from the fourth wall, but theatrical conventions of textual supremacy and loyalty to the classics limit that freedom. That's not to say this play isn't good: it's great. The Marx Brothers, even in impersonation, work far better on stage than on screen. That said, Marx Brothers texts are limited by Marx Brothers films in that the films sustain their iconographic lazzi. A better choice might have been creating a full-fledged piece of commedia dell'arte: it would free the clowns from the text while retaining Oregon Shakespeare Festival's classical roots.