SPOTLIGHT ON THEATER NOTES PRODUCED BY THE PERFORMANCE PLUS™ PROGRAM, KENNEDY CENTER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT THE ALAN AYCKBOURN AND ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER MUSICAL BASED ON THE JEEVES STORIES BY P.G. WODEHOUSE logo designed by Dewynters plc., London TM © 1996 RUG Ltd. TM © 1996 RUG London plc., Dewynters designed by logo Y EEVES “The Fairy Tale World B J Jeevesorever joined and at the comic Bertie hip, Reginald Jeeves and Bertram Wilberforce Wooster are in the front rank of Fdroll characters invented in the 20th century. of P.G.odehouse Wodehouse” biographer Richard Jeeves is the perfect manservant. Bertie (“Bertram Voorhees* points out that BERTheTIE WOO STCharactersER TheTHE SCENE Story: A church hall, later to represent a London Wilberforce” is reserved for the rarest of occasions) is the WWodehouse’s fiction belongs “spiri- John Scherer flat and the house and grounds of Totleigh Towers. far-from-perfect master. Through the imagination of P.G. tually to the world of Victoria and Edward VII,” a THE TIME: This very evening. Wodehouse they have found a happy symbiosis, not unlike world “roughly limited on one side by the EEVES his manservant J , Eager to contribute to the festivities of a charity benefit that of naughty child and protective parent. Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria [1897] and Richard Kline performance in an English village hall, dim-but-affable Given Bertie’s propensity for foolish capers and his limited on the other by the introduction of the cross- Bertie Wooster bursts on stage strumming a frying pan. HONORIA GLOSSOP, his ex-fiance vocabulary, it is a bit difficult to understand how he managed word puzzle [1925].” To his confusion and chagrin, he realizes that the pan has Donna Lynne Champlin to graduate such prestigious institutions of learning as Eton been substituted for his stolen banjo. While his It is, as another observer puts it, the “fairy tale and Oxford. “However did he do it?” seems a reasonable BINGO LITTLE, his friend, in love with Honoria resourceful manservant Jeeves supervises a search world of P.G. Wodehouse.” In that world, rich, for the missing instrument, Bertie tells anecdotes question. Randy Redd idle young scions of aristocratic families are “a about muddled adventures he has had with some Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia refers to him as “the Abysmal Chump.” perpetual twenty-five. Their girls are a perpetual GUSSIE FINK-NOTTLE, another friend, in love of his aristocratic friends. Jeeves locates makeshift (He observes that he is sure she eats broken glass and turns twenty. But their behavior-ages are less. They act with Madeline costumes, props, and scenery that allow Bertie and into a werewolf when the moon is full.) James Kall friends to re-enact a recent and chaotic weekend like fifteen-year-olds . a rather rowdy fifteen,” house party given at Totleigh Hall. Jeeves—ever dignified, loyal, resourceful—solves Bertie’s prob- according to Richard Usborne.** SIR WATKIN BASSETT, a magistrate When the mistaken identities, misunderstood lems on the basis of knowing, as he puts it, “the psychology of The young people have names like the charac- Merwin Goldsmith intentions, and general folderol of the the individual.” He reads Latin literature in the original, is fond story have been resolved, Bertie’s banjo is of epigrams, studies Spinoza, and is practiced in an array of ters in By Jeeves: Gussie Fink-Nottle, Stiffy Byng, MADELINE BAssEtt, his daugh- found, and, in a conclusion of village hall ways useful to his dimwitted employer. He concocts a hang- Honoria Glossop, Harold “Stinker” Pinker, and ter spectacle, over cure-all, he apparently remembers everything he reads, Bingo Little. Nancy Anderson the entire company hears, and sees, and his problem-solving skills are profound. performs “The They live in or visit places such as Woolam STIFFY BYNG, his ward Wizard Rainbow To save the day as many times as he does, it is necessary for Chersey, Chuffnell Hall, Totleigh Towers, Maiden Emily Loesser Finale.” Jeeves to call upon his darker side. He lies, cheats, blackmails, Eggesford, and Steeple Bumpleigh. bribes, and, in one memorable instance, fells a policeman with HAROLD “STINKER” a blackjack. They use expressions such as “Right-ho!,” PINKER, a clergyman, in love “dashed difficult,” “chappie,” “By Jove!,” “Tally- P.G. Wodehouse insisted that he did not take his characters with Stiffy ho!,” “rannygazoo,” and “oojum-cum-spiff.” Ian Knauer from real life, but, like other authors, he must surely have used characteristics of real people in his work. Bertie may Many of the males are, like Bertie Wooster, CYRUS BUDGE III (JR.), have been inspired by the British character actor George members of the Drones Club, where they drink an American guest Grossmith, the originator of “dude comedy.” William Amos, a martinis, scotch and lemon, and lemon sours. Nicolas Colicos student of Wodehouse’s work, believes that some aspects of Arrested in comic adolescence, they require the OZZIE NUTLEDGE Bertie were inspired by Wodehouse’s son-in-law Anthony Bingham Mildmay, the second Baron Mildmay of Flete. services of their servants, or other hired hands, Robert Berman to get them out of the messes they make as Jeeves’ character may have been sparked by a butler at a they bumble through life. OTHER PERSONAGES London hotel and a mix of others, including one of Tom Ford, Wodehouse’s own. Jeeves’ name is probably derived from Enter Jeeves. Molly Renfroe, Percy Jeeves, a well-known cricketeer, but accordi ng to *Richard Voorhees, P.G. Wodehouse Court Whisman Amos it may also be a variation on “Jeames,” 19th-century **Richard Usborne, Wodehouse at Work slang for “flunkey.” In celebration of Wodehouse’s accomplishment in creating so indelible a character as Jeeves, C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a “biography” of the paragon of manservants, Jeeves: A Gentleman’s Personal Gentleman (1979). 2 3 ComposerANDREW LLOYD WEBBER Writer-DirectorAlaN AYCKBOURN P. G. Wodehouse:ith a name similar to those he assigned Comic to his characters, Master Pelham Grenville Wodehouse wrote his ndrew Lloyd Webber, Lord of y Jeeves is Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s fourth show to way to fame, a bit of infamy, and fortune. Appropriate to the word play which marks his work, he Sydmonton since the begin- appear at the Kennedy Center. Earlier, produc- pronounced his name “Woodhouse” and was called “Plum.” ning of this year, is currently tions of Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, W English-born and nanny-and-relative-raised, he began his professional life as a London Athe world’s most renowned and Absent Friends appeared to both critical bank clerk. Within two years, his spare-time writing propelled him into full-time self- composer of musical theater. The interna- B approval and favorable audience response in the employment. In addition to writing stories for a variety of publications, he became a tional success of Cats, Evita, and Phantom of Eisenhower Theater. columnist for the London Globe. the Opera alone have ensured that renown. Adding to it is the affection millions feel Those plays are among the 60-plus that Ayckbourn has By 1914, Wodehouse had moved to the United States; he wrote regularly for the for his other works, notably Jesus Christ written over the last 38 years. In a use of time that Saturday Evening Post, in which almost all of his stories appeared between 1914 to 1939. seems to defy the clock, Ayckbourn also directs—at Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Wodehouse also prospered as a novelist and as a book and lyric writer for musi- Dreamcoat, Starlight Express, and Sunset London’s Royal National Theatre, in the West End, and at cal comedies. Among the composers with whom he worked were Franz Boulevard. his home base, the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where he serves as Lehar, Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Sigmund Lloyd Webber’s artistic director. In l992, he even Romberg, Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, and shelves are full to managed to fill the post of Cole Porter. He was frequently linked as bursting with acco- co-author of musical comedies with lades received in Cameron Mackintosh Professor Guy Bolton; they wrote, among others, the United States of Contemporary Theatre at and Great Britain, Oxford University. Leave It To Jane, Rosalie, Oh, Kay!, and Anything Goes. including multiple Almost 30 of his plays have been Tony, Drama Desk, produced at the Royal National Writer Lee Davis argues that Wodehouse, Grammy, and Theatre or in the West End. A Bolton, and Kern created the first musicals Olivier awards. larger number of them have been “to treat seriously music, book, and lyrics as UPI/CORBIS-BETTMANN As a producer, through the Really Useful translated into other languages—30, at last count. creative partners.” Group, Lloyd Webber backs the work of The recipient of all of Great Britain’s major theater Wodehouse had written the scripts for three films made in England, but it was other composers and writers as well as awards, Ayckbourn was made a Commander of the his two stays in Hollywood—which he called Dottyville-on-the-Pacific—that his own. It was the Really Useful Group British Empire in l987 and was raised to knighthood ear- which gave Washington playwright Ken increased his fortune and gave him new story subjects. lier this year. Ludwig his first hit production ofLend Me Wodehouse’s bit of infamy arose from five radio broadcasts he made from a Tenor, of which an American production About farce—which some think By Jeeves is— Nazi Germany in l940 during internment there. Wodehouse argued later was seen in the Eisenhower Theater in Ayckbourn says, “I love doing [them], but they’re bloody that the programs poked fun at his captors, and writer George Orwell 1990.