If director John Rando does his job, every member of the
audience will leave the Geffen Playhouse performance of “The
Underpants” feeling a little frisky.
The Tony Award-winning director of “Urinetown” and
UCLA School of Theater alumnus outlined his goals to the gifted
comedic cast of “The Underpants” on day one. “We
have to titillate and arouse. (We want) the people that come to the
show to be having a great time, laughing their heads off, and then
go home and have really, really fun sex after the show.”
Steve Martin adapted “The Underpants,” a play
originally written by German playwright Carl Sternheim, for an
American audience that desires sensationalism.
“The play is sort of talking about 15 minutes of fame,
where people who (are involved in scandal) come to the forefront,
are looked at under a judicious eye by the public and then
forgotten about,” Rando said.
The center of attention is Louise Maske, whose life heats up
after her underpants fall down during a parade for the king. The
situational comedy arises from her husband Theo Maske’s
obliviousness. Two boarders renting rooms in the house flirt with
Louise by hissing double entendres across the dinner table, right
under Theo’s nose.
Good girl Louise is played by Meredith Patterson, who brings
grace to her character from her musical background as Peggy Sawyer
in “42nd Street” on Broadway. Patterson describes
Louise’s feelings as being conflicted by this scandal.
“(Getting attention) is bad, but then I want it,”
said Patterson. “It’s wrong because I’m married,
but to have all these guys coming into our house is exciting.
It’s pulling and tugging with my emotions.”
As Louise feels new sensations of sexual power, Theo channels
his sexual energy into a neurotic personality. Actor Dan
Castellaneta describes his character, Theo, as having a whirlwind
of emotions ““ “he’s angry, he’s whining,
he’s seething, he’s frightened” ““ all
within the span of one scene.
Best known for the voice of Homer Simpson, the slim-figured
Castellaneta plays Theo ironically, much as he does with Homer.
“The description of Theo was (one of) a giant, burly,
blond crew cut Germanic guy. The only way I thought that I could
play this was to be a guy who thinks he’s that way,”
said Castellaneta.
As if the title didn’t beckon enough naughty thoughts, the
set of “The Underpants” is loaded with phallic symbols.
In the middle of Maske’s German bourgeois household, where
the play takes place, is an old-fashioned oven Rando describes as
“a big old penis that we just blatantly had there.”
The angles of the walls are slanted as if someone took the frame
of the house and tipped it over 30 degrees. Rando concludes that
the meaning of the architecture is expressionistic.
“It’s saying that the things going on in the house
are a little wacked out. Things are a little bent.”
Rando’s affinity for laughing at life became contagious on
the set during the creative process. Of Rando’s directing
abilities, Castellaneta joked, “(During rehearsal) when John
said, “˜Let’s do all the bad ideas,’ I (knew) I
was going to love working with this guy. It made me feel free to
suggest things.”