On Stage: “The Fox on the Fairway”
Production photos
The Fox on the Fairway
“I think we all need a good laugh,” announced Kevin Connors, artistic director of the Music Theater of Connecticut on opening night of Ken Ludwig’s farce “The Fox on the Fairway,” skewering the foibles of golfers and their misplaced balls.
Set in the Tap Room of the Quail Valley Country Club, it’s the day of the annual tournament against the team from their perennial rivals, Crouching Squirrel.
“Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them,” slyly purrs Pamela (Missy Dowes) the show’s libidinous leading lady.
To spice up the sporty competition, club manager Bingham (Josh Powell), who lives in terror of his domineering wife Mabel (Anette Michelle Sanders), gets roped into betting far more than he can afford with his arch-rival, duplicitous Dickie (Sean Hannon), who surreptitiously poached Quail Valley’s best player.
So Bingham turns to his eager new assistant, Justin (Ted Gibson) who is besotted with the club’s beguiling nymphet waitress Louise (Erin M. Williams).
Apparently Justin’s a ringer as long as he’s not upset. But when he discovers that Louise accidentally flushed his grandmother’s engagement ring down the toilet, his game disastrously disintegrates.
Best known for “Lend Me a Tenor,” playwright Ken Ludwig pays tribute here to "the great British farces of the 1930s and 1940s." Sure, the contrived plot is flimsy but Amy Griffin’s deft direction makes the sophomoric wit of this rip-roaring romp work, along with the enthusiasm and exuberance of the expert ensemble cast, particularly during the amusing curtain call reenactment.
“The Fox on the Fairway” will be performed at the Music Theater of Connecticut, 509 Westport Avenue in Norwalk, through November 23, so get your tee-off time — a.k.a. tickets — soon.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.