Hands Across the Sea: On Stage With The British Players

[pullquote]“Just because a man hops in a taxi once in a while doesn’t mean he has to give up his car.”[/pullquote]

THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM, the stage lights rise and the troubles of the world fade away in forgetful laughter for a while. British bedroom farce, old-time Music Hall and the pantomime are the unique theatrical properties of the British stage. Perhaps in no other theater company in the world, however, are these delightful, quintessentially British performance genres the repertoire mainstay besides The British Players.
For more than four decades, The British Players has been one of the most popular community theater groups in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, delighting audiences in the capital region with its very British theatrical experience.
The Players winter production was a classic in the bedroom farce genre, Key for Two, reprised by popular demand from its 25th-anniversary season in 1989. Yes, laughter prevailed. It’s the old, old story. The wily and slightly sultry Harriet is mistress of two married gentleman, Alec and Gordon, hosting them at her lovely Brighton flat (on a strict schedule, of course). Each of them is paying her rent and living expenses, though naturally neither knows of the other’s existence.

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As we might imagine, Harriet’s strict schedule goes haywire and chaos predictably ensues. After all, the premise of comedy is that the ordered world collapses into disorder. Harriet’s girlfriend Anne comes for an extended visit. Lovers Alec and Gordon show up at the same time. The men’s wives find the trysting place; Anne’s drunken husband appears to complicate the scene and the rest is raucous bedroom farce at its finest. The audience had almost as good a time as the cast and crew—some of whom have been performing and producing with the company since the ’80s.
Begun in 1964, the company was known until fairly recently as the British Embassy Players, reflecting both its core membership and its performance venue through most of the organization’s history. As its name implied, the group was birthed by staff at the British Embassy. Subsequently, its membership was expanded to include expats of the Commonwealth countries and finally to embrace some Yanks. When rebuilding at the embassy eliminated the group’s long-standing principal performance space, the embassy rotunda, the company reorganized and incorporated in 2006 as The British Players. This year’s productions are being staged at Kensington Town Hall, in Kensington, Md., just outside the Capital Beltway.
Though the company has relocated and broadened its membership, its traditions continue and…the show must go on. What continues as well is the Players’ unerring commitment to fostering Anglo-American goodwill. As the only community theater group of its kind in the country, the British Players describes its purpose: “The group serves as a direct cultural link between Embassy staff members, British and Commonwealth citizens living in the Washington area, and the American community. The long-standing traditions of the British theatre are being carried to an appreciative audience of diverse background, thereby fostering and enriching Anglo-American relations.”

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In practical demonstration of that purpose, to date the company has been instrumental in raising more than $400,000 for British and American charities. Oxfam, the American Museum in Bath and the English Speaking Union are among many beneficiaries of Players’ benefit performances.
Given its location, unsurprisingly the company has performed in front of a host of political dignitaries. Among the memorable moments in the Players’ long history was a Music Hall performance in 1974 on the occasion of Betty Ford’s birthday. Unrehearsed, then Vice President Ford and his family joined the cast impromptu on stage for the Music Hall finale, “Knees Up Mother Brown.”
Over the years, the company’s productions have included many of the classics of English theater, including The Importance of Being Earnest, Blithe Spirit, An Inspector Calls, The Mousetrap and Charley’s Aunt. While they have delved into Shakespeare, Shaw and classic musicals from time to time, there is no doubt that comedy is the company’s forte and first love. In the three or four full-scale productions that the group’s passionate membership of 250 mounts each year, laughter and light music prevails.
Every June, the British Players stage their traditional, and wildly popular, Old Time Music Hall. Now largely a lost performanceart form, Music Hall is a music and variety show closely akin to old-time vaudeville but with its own earthy British aesthetic. It was actually King George II who legitimized the entertainment by signing the Music Hall Act in 1752.
Over the next century, Music Hall grew from its roots in pubs and taverns until nearly every town in Britain had a purpose-built Music Hall. Its decades of popularity as an entertainment form have left a rich trove of comic songs and sketches mined by the company. After 42 years of its own musical stagecraft, though, the British Players has a few traditional touches and old standards of its own.
The pantomime remains one much-loved aspect of British culture that many American Anglophiles have not seen. After all, we tend to go traveling to Britain when the weather is better and the days are longer. So popular is the pantomime in Britain, though, that nearly every regional theater company balances its books on the receipts of the annual Christmas production (which often runs from mid-November through mid-January).
To the uninitiated, pantomime can perhaps best be described as a slapstick, fractured fairy tale with audience participation. Conventions of the panto include men playing busty, risqué dames, girls playing principal boys and everyone straying from the plot line for a laugh. Double entendres and political incorrectness abound, but the audience always has such a good time that no one bothers to get offended.
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Mother Goose and Aladdin are among the stories that the British Players have fractured in its yearly Christmas pantomime productions. In this country, there are few places where this holiday seasonal art form is brought to life by those who have literally grown up with it. Or perhaps the premise of pantomime and the secret of its enduring popularity is that we never grow up.

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In any event, the premise of the British Players is fun and so are the people. Here in our own nation’s capital, we have a resident community theater company of mixed English-speaking nationalities keeping alive the British theatrical traditions whose purpose is to put a smile on your face, a spring in your step and a song on your lips. Don’t miss it. If you are in the Washington, D.C., area when the British Players are over the footlights, by all means treat yourself to an evening with them.
Now in its 43rd season, this year’s performance dates of the Players’ Old Time Music Hall are June 19 to July 1. Information on tickets, for British Heritage readers in the D.C. area and visitors, can be found at www.britishplayers.org.