The Schoolhouse Theater Has Another Hit With Perfect Nonsense

The Schoolhouse Theater Has Another Hit With Perfect Nonsense

The venerable Schoolhouse Theater concludes its 39^th season with a “perfectly frightful weekend” at Totleigh Towers in this production of Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. The play opened to a sold-out crowd on Friday night, and the calculated nonsense in this British farce, if I may borrow a common P.G. Wodehouse formulation, “made the plaster fall from the ceiling.”

Wodehouse is the celebrated British humorist influenced by Oscar Wilde who in turn has inspired the likes of everyone from Agatha Christie and Evelyn Waugh to Douglas Adams, Helen Fielding and even Seth Meyers. He is best known for his 16 books about the properly rich Bertie Wooster and his Übermensch valet Jeeves.

The play, written by David and Robert Goodale, is based on Wodehouse’s 1938 novel The Code of the Woosters— that is widely considered the best in the Jeeves series. Like the book the stage production is guaranteed to leave you (to use another Wodehouse-ism) perfectly “gruntled.”

The Farce Begins

The farce begins when Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia petitions him to steal a silver cow creamer from Sir Watkyn Bassett that her husband covets. With Wodehouse, however, no felonious assignment is easy. As Bertie has also been summoned to Totleigh Towers by his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle to mend a pre-nuptial rift between him and his fiancé Madeline Bassett.

Who, in the strange social order of British aristocracy, Bertie must marry if he fails. With the old ball and chain already halfway round his ankle the urgency gets jacked when Gussie’s notebook filled with insults about his intended’s father—the same Sir Watkyn Bassett— is discovered missing. Bertie must find it before it falls into Bassett’s hands.

Of course, the hapless Wooster is not remotely capable of handling any such things. That’s where his brilliant and coldly efficient personal fixer Jeeves comes in to save the disorderly day. The way it all plays out tees up the proverbial Wodehouse nonsense.

The Production

For their part, the Goodale’s nearly steal the show with their staging that features a barebones set and a minimal cast. The often-hilarious chaos that ensues when actors take on multiple roles (in this case three actors perform 12 roles between them) adds an extra dimension to the master’s work. That the Schoolhouse cast fills triumphantly.

Beginning with Jason Guy, a veteran of 75 professional productions ranging from Hamlet to Singing in the Rain. Guy takes the star turn as Jeeves, Sir Watkyn Bassett, Madeline Bassett, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Stiffy Byng, Bassett’s scheming niece.

In easily the most hilarious scene, Guy pulls off the simultaneous portrayal of two characters at once thanks to Nancy Nichols’ brilliantly bifurcated costume and a lot of Guy’s own graceful twisting and turning— by toggling back and forth between Byng on one side and Watkyn Bassett on the other. It is worth the price of admission alone!

Mark Edward Lang meanwhile is a seasoned vet in playing multiple roles having portrayed seven characters in the Irish comedy Stones in his Pockets at Open Stage of Harrisburg. Here he plays Aunt Dahlia, her butler Seppings, Roderick Spode, Constable Oates and Bassett’s butler Butterfield— colorful characters all— to no less comic effect than Guy.

Meanwhile, Will DeVary takes on the role of Bertie Wooster, the idle bachelor at the center of all the noise. This is DeVary’s second turn at the Schoolhouse, having played Hally in the 2024 production of Master Harold and the Boys, and he’s rapidly establishing himself as a go-to lead in drama or comedy.

Finally, the multiple award-winning Director Owen Thompson follows up his masterful work in Les Liaisons dangereuses this past fall by tightly containing this romp that threatens to spin out of control, in his hands, in only the right places.

Give yourself an early holiday present and catch one of the remaining ten productions this week and next. Trust me you’ll be “gruntled.”