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BY QUITTERIE GOUNOT

In print | Published April 15, 2010

Around this time of year, as papers pile up and exams loom close, we Swatties are in dire need of entertainment. As this weekend’s performance of “The Butter and Egg Man” showed, our peers are excellent at providing us this fun break.

Although set in the 1920s, “The Butter and Egg Man” successfully immerses the audience in its environment: the corrupt and hectic milieu of show business. This play was likely one of the inspirations for the famous musical “The Producers.”

When Peter Jones, played by Harry Apostoleris ’12, a sweet and naïve boy from Ohio, comes to New York self-consciously bearing a large inheritance, he finds himself caught in the rapid traffic of a language that he does not speak: the language of show biz — and of money. It does not take much convincing for him to invest the bulk of his assets in a play produced by a certain Joe Lehman, played by Avilash Pahi ’13. But Lehman turns out to be a shameless crook who is not nearly as sure of the play he is presenting to Jones as he claims to be. Jones soon risks losing both the funds and the trust that he had invested into the project.

This familiar tale of the outsider being duped by the city men comes as no surprise. The interesting twist comes when the plays turns out to be unexpectedly successful, with Jones having obtained the controlling share. He is finally in a position to give the former producers a taste of their own medicine.

The play’s wacky cast of characters gives it all its comedic brillianc, and the actors breathed new life into recognizable types and made each character into an original creation. Pahi, with his booming voice and mysterious hat, was great in the role of the crook, Lehman. His animation when selling his play generated an energy that never completely waned. Apostoleris’s candor shone in his sympathetic portrayal of Jones. Elizabeth Keck ’13 was the grandiose femme fatale Mary Martin, shining with glitter and overdramatic in her every gesture. Zack Wiener ’12 put his linguistics training to good use, enunciating his words just as a pretentious British director would. Every single actor demonstrated an ability to take his or her character completely over the top, winning the audience’s laughter and appreciation.

Assistant Director Will Treece ’11 was in charge of the not-so-small feat of “keeping things light and funny.” As a purely comedic play, “The Butter and Egg Man” was very different from “Outrage,” the play Treece helped direct in the fall. Treece enjoyed this new challenge.

“It’s a lot of acting concepts and seeing them through comedic lenses,” he said. Commenting on the humor of the play, Treece added that he thinks that it is mainly a “big character play.”

“All the characters are just ridiculous. It’s all about throwing them into the same room and seeing what happens,” Treece said.

Much of the comic effect here, he explained, was based on people failing to match the expectations others have for them. For example, the producers expect Jones to be a complete idiot, but he eventually outsmarts them.

While the play’s humor definitely has much appeal, director Anne Coleman ’10 saw much more to “The Butter and Egg Man” than mere entertainment. For her, it was an invaluable opportunity to showcase the work of playwright George Kaufman. This particular play was an especially interesting choice, because it is the only one that Kaufman wrote without a collaborator.

Coleman pointed out that “The Butter and Egg Man” bears many parallels to Kaufman’s life. The character of the literary agent is an echo of the many people who plagued Kaufman’s career with plagiarism accusations. Coleman also interpreted Kaufman’s humor as a response to those people around him. Kaufman had entertained a somewhat dysfunctional relationship with a prestigious circle of New York intellectuals, who constantly sought to impress, outstrip and tease each other. Coleman saw Kaufman’s use of one-liners as well as his characters as inspired by that relationship.
“He loved looking around him and turning people into material. His friends knew who they were in his scripts. It was all about how to insult each other within a circle of friends,” Coleman said.

Members of the cast seem to have enjoyed making the play, thanks in part to Treece and Coleman. Aside from playing acting games, the cast found the directors’ knowledge of theory to be impressive and helpful.

“This must be a Swarthmore thing, but I’d never unpacked things that much before, like comedy and what is funny,” Keck said.

Keck felt challenged by the pervasive physicality of her role, but relished the opportunity to try out a character quite different from the villains and musical characters she played in high school.

“You have to make [your character] human. I understand what [Mary Martin] wants,” she said. “It might seem vapid and shallow to me, but I can see where she is coming from.”

“The Butter and Egg Man” offered a powerful glimpse into the 1920s world of show business and into Kaufman’s own relationship with other intellectuals.

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