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The Salacious Uncle Baldrick

nytheatre.com review by Maggie Cino
August 15, 2005

With The Salacious Uncle Baldrick, Sean Kent and Kenan Minkoff have achieved not just laugh-out-loud farce but fabulous theater. Not only are all the jokes funny, but the situations and characters are so well constructed it’s impossible not to care about these broad, absurd people and long for their troubles to have a happy ending.Uncle Baldrick has come to visit his brother Ephraim. Their brother Dickie died many years ago, leaving Ephraim caretaker of both the family perfume fortune and Dickie’s daughter Lucy. At the opening, the family business is going under and Ephraim wants to marry Lucy off to a rich man. Lucy despises the man her uncle has picked for her and appeals to Uncle Baldrick, and as the story unfolds we encounter pirates, the greatest disguise in the world, and a group of Frenchmen with an indeterminate number of arms.The script is done tremendous service by both director and cast. Matt Cowart’s consistent, impeccable direction keeps everything in line and the story hurtling towards its ultimate conclusion. Christy Pusz, Ryan Shams, Will Rogers, Shaun Kelvin and Alan Mozes are all consummate performers with explosive energy that never strains. But the heart of this play is the volatile relationship between Baldrick and Ephraim. Expertly played by Josh Perilo and Richard Robichaux respectively, they hate each other and love each other as only family can.Even the scene changes, lyrically performed by Paige Hutchinson and Brian Philage, keep us in the world of the play and move the action along. Lex Liang’s costumes are not only beautiful but swing and flounce as the actors do. Gregg Bellon’s commedia-esque set establishes the tone, and John Burkland’s lighting rounds everything out.Before going into this play I would never have suspected that the world needed a new farce set in Moliere’s time with period costumes, bad language, and pirates. But now I find myself glad that such a thing exists.