‘Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense’

By Alix Cohen

Love and Lunacy; Erroneous Conclusion, Blackmail, and Marriage or Not

By Alix Cohen

The thing begins when Bertie Wooster’s chum, Gussie Fink-Nottle begs him to come to Totleigh Towers to sort out a breach with fiancé Madeline Basset. At the same time, Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia dispatches him there to steal “a sort of silver cow creamer with a kind of blotto look on its face” or lose the best chef in London to the antique’s current owner.

Events prove Bertie well meaning but catastrophically inept. His gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves, untangles the mess and restores peace. The moral, if any, is that when Jeeves advises caution, one should jolly well listen.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) was born in Guilford, a perfectly respectable place to begin life. He went on to Dulwich College where he learned the finer points of cricket, Latin, and how not to do any actual work. A brief spell at a bank followed during which Wodehouse found his salvation writing comic stories.

The next seventy odd years he produced novels, short stories, plays and lyrics designed to keep the world in a state of gentle chuckle. Wodehouse ended his days in America, still scribbling away, convinced that the best thing one can do in life is make people laugh- preferably at someone else’s expense.

Along the way, he invented calm, resourceful Jeeves with a brain the size of Westminster Abby and employer, Bertie Wooster, a caricature of the amiable but clueless young aristocrat constantly rescued from his own blunders. As far as I can tell, playwrights The Goodale Brothers have combined Right Ho, Jeeves with The Code of the Woosters to create this frolicsome tale.

We meet Bertie (Will DeVary) listening to wonderful 1930s music in fact written by director Owen Thompson’s grandfather. There’s no fourth wall. The story is both told to us and enacted with the hero’s obtuse, ingenuous appeal. He conscripts Jeeves (Jason Guy) to play himself. The mercurial Guy also inhabits Stephanie “Stiffy” Bing, twittery Gussie Fink-Nottle researcher of newts and intermittent fiancé, and Madeline’s pompous father, Sir Watlyn Basset.

Our tale plays out on a splendid set of mostly one-dimensional cut-outs including a roadster, bathtub, bicycle, and rotating library/bedroom which are charmingly sketched and painted. (The bed could be more recognizable as such.) Ersatz fascist/interfering antagonist, Roderick Spode’s extreme height, assisted by increasingly tall stools, finally settles on a tall, headless cardboard figure behind which the actor Mark Edward Lang stands on a stepladder. Isabelle Favette – Scenic Artist/Set Design.

The apparatus moves on wheels evoking a screech so inspired it should win an award. Sound Design by Jessica Klee and Owen Thompson is timely and imaginative- oh, the crash!

Nancy Nichols’ Costumes are not only period perfect but, whether depicting men or women, express whimsy without quite going over the top. Well tailored ensembles personify character. Aunt Dahlia’s absurd hat with escaping curls, Stephanie’s marcelled hair and excessive frills, Bertie’s proper class styling, and an ingenious outfit literally half Stephanie and half Sir Basset add verisimilitude and pizzazz.

The play itself might work better were it a bit less announced and more enacted. We don’t need to be repeatedly told as Bertie changes costume, that parts of the piece are necessarily dull. Another character’s stage business could effectively replace this. There’s also a curiously unresolved scene when Bertie trips over a cat and the cow is tossed slow motion between three characters. Otherwise, plot chortles along tongue firmly in cheek.

Will DeVary’s Bertie is aptly, perpetually bewildered and perturbed. Freeze frames work to good advantage. Skibbling from place to place and jumping up and down when excited emerge organic. DeVary listens well, expertly leaving a Bertie-like beat for absorption before reaction. He connects with audience.

Jason Guy is a marvel. The thespian morphs from droll, tolerant Jeeves to Madeline attired in lampshade and curtain (a nod to Carol Burnett?), to Sir Basset’s belly-first pontificating, to Gussie’s frenetic awkwardness, never failing to be distinctive. As half Sir Basset, half Stephanie, he’s inspired. Bravo the somersault and having fun with the roles.

Mark Edward Lang alas, doesn’t weigh in. A well-accented Bobby (policeman) lands well, but Aunt Dahlia could be more affectedly upper class, the butler Seppings less cliché, and Spode physically bumbling or perhaps with a tick (more odd.)

Director Owen Thompson attributes “baptism into this celestial glow” (of Wodehouse) to his mother, “an English specimen of the finest alloy.” Even his program notes mirror the author’s brio. Creation of the dap (a coded sequence of movements used to signal membership in a group) with which Bertie and Gussie insist on beginning every encounter, is a hoot as is the young men’s resemblance to popping corn. Entrances, exits and off stage conversations seamlessly link narrative as do actors shifting sets.
Silent-film-like expressions add immeasurably.

‘A glimpse of the quintessential comic novelist and his timeless tribe.

Photos by Doug Abdelnour @ Bedford Photo-Graphic Inc.

Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense
By The Goodale Brothers
Based on the work of P.G. Wodehouse
Directed by Owen Thompson

The Schoolhouse Theater, Croton Falls, New York- New Season May 2026
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through December 21, 2025
https://www.theschoolhousetheater.org/?lightbox=dataItem-khb5nv3r

Jeeves and Wooster won a 2014 Olivier Award in London and has been done in regional theaters across America, most notably at Hartford Stage.