Imagination blends with physical creativity to produce a highly inventive jaunt Around the World in 80 Days. It’s billed as family fun but shouldn’t disappoint anyone who loves Jules Verne’s novel or the film and plays based on it or even most theater-goers who enjoy comedy from slapstick to satire. A British production, based on a French novel, presented by an Italian-named Florida rep company, it swiftly (and that’s the operative word) makes its home in a circus town. Wealthy English aristocrat Phineas Fogg gambles and pursues a fortune trying to get from his club around the world and back in only 80 days. Andrew Pollard never loses his stiff upper lip (or his umbrella) as unfoggy Fogg, despite the ill wishes of powerful Matthew Ganley as conniving Colonel Proctor and pursuit by Dennis Herdman’s intrepid Inspector Fix. Doubling—and then some— as important people Fogg meets on his journey are Pushpinder Chani, Joey Parsad, Nyron Levy, and sometimes Stefan Ruiz. The most important is the widowed Mrs. Aouda, played energetically by pretty Kirsten Foster. Saved by Fogg, she’s the only one who singularly impresses him. But the real star of the show is the amazing clown Michael Hugo as Passepartout, who thought he’d have a peaceful job as Fogg’s manservant but turned into a major sidekick. Hugo’s an extraordinarily physical actor yet without losing a very winning personality. He’s Fogg’s perfect companion. As an ideal scenic metaphor for the action, many differently shaped trunks and suitcases come or stand or lie together and apart to create the scenes of the play. At house left, they end upward in what passes for Fogg’s home, with its main room defined by umbrellas. Here and at times downstage, railings set up ships and gates. Director Laura Eason sets scenes and blocks every bit of activity faultlessly. There’s no program mention of a costume designer, so one may suppose the scenic one, Liz Evans, is also responsible for proper costuming and a marvelous use of parts of dress as well as folding of large items of cloth into animals. I found the British accents a bit hard to understand at times, but this may have been due to problems with sound, especially not in a company’s main home theater. James Atherton’s music is appropriate thematically and as background sound. It’s always good, too, to hear audience laughter. I would guess it will be enhanced by that of children throughout the month, especially during special Family performances.
