The stage company, 1812 Productions is taking the period-piece route for its latest comedy, “To Fool The Eye,” which runs through March 3 at Drexel’s Mandell Theater.
An adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s 1939 romantic comedy, “Amanda,” “Eye” revolves around the efforts of an eccentric duchess to freeze in time the moment when her nephew found the great love of his life, Léocadia, only to lose her to an untimely death.
“It’s about love and loss and trying to hold onto the past,” out cast member Brian McCann said. “The young prince had a three-day courtship with a woman who dies at the end of the courtship. So he continually tries to relive those three days over and over again with the help of his very eccentric and wealthy aunt. She’s trying to keep him happy. It sounds like an odd thing for a comedy but it is absolutely beautiful.”
The scene plays out for years until a young girl named Amanda enters the picture. The poor hatmaker is a perfect doppelganger for the lost Léocadia, but the ruse begins to unravel as Amanda and the nephew continue to interact.
McCann, who plays the butler, said that his character is tasked with organizing all of the pertinent details in the orchestration, as would be expected in that era.
“He runs the whole thing,” McCann said. “He is responsible for anything — hiring the people to reenact the three days. His aunt is so rich that she moves the hotel and the restaurant, ice-cream carts and taxi cab that the prince and his lover encountered in those three days, and moves them into her estate so he can relive those memories at home. The butler is making sure those things operate smoothly. He’s the classic ‘Downtown Abbey’-type butler. He’s very put together.”
The cast had just completed the previews before the official opening of “To Fool The Eye” at presstime, and McCann said they spent those early runs of the show tweaking the comedic elements of the story.
“Comedy is a different beast than drama,” he said. “It’s very mathematical and precise. We’ve been changing things that aren’t working. So for the last five previews we’ve been changing things slightly, cutting things that weren’t working and adding things that we thought would work. I think we’ve gotten to a place where we are all very pleased.”
1812 Productions presents “To Fool the Eye” through March 3 at Mandell Theater, 3201 Chestnut St. For more information or tickets, call 215-592-9560 or visit www.1812productions.org.