by Diana Goldammer

Rob Brewster's living a lie and he'd like to keep it that way.  Doing so, however, proves to be a complicated prescription.

So goes the plot of the Mitchell Area Community Theatre’s latest outing, "Playing Doctor," a zany farce about a struggling writer/college drop-out who never quite became the doctor his uppity parents believe him to be.

Would-be novelist Rob Brewster (Eric Schroeder) has misrepresented himself and is about to be exposed and so must carry out sustained fakery to cover for his mischief. Although given sufficient funds to attend medical school by his affluent parents, Rob instead studied creative writing at Columbia University and also purchased fancy digs in North Jersey.  Schroeder kept up the crazy pace from beginning to end; he bounced from one end of the stage to the other. 

As the action begins he's dictating his masterpiece to Max Blake (Lori Goldammer).  Max has some problems getting words right, like writing "liver" for "lover" or "Jug of Saliva" for "Yugoslavia."  Goldammer was a delightful ditz, playing the role with just the right mix of bubblehead and savvy.

Dad (Russ Whaley) and mom Brewster (Linda Heath) are arriving from Miami, and although they have not checked around for years, they want to see how their doctor son is getting along. Rob must enlist Max and his pal Jimmy (Dave Roy), an unemployed actor, to scam the parents.  Simultaneously, the conspirators must avoid the athletic and angry Chuck Murdock (Dan Williams), whose argumentative ex-[wife] Maureen (Sarah Hayes) is now an item with Jimmy.  As Rob coaxes his team to go along with the ruse he reassures them, "What could possibly go wrong?"

Williams and Hayes provide old-school humor as they run their own story line throughout the play.  They run on and off stage providing great one-liners and great interference.

At Jimmy's first entrance he's wearing a Hasidic costume, supposedly trying out for a role in Fiddler on the Roof.  That's the tip-off for what will drive the central comic action, since he will play all the visiting patients to Rob's fictional clinic.  So on they come. A Chico Marx-accented Italian.  A barefoot Arab in a robe.  A pregnant woman.  An Irish cop.  A midget.  A German surgeon. Superman. The physical gags and one-liners generated by these characters are worth the price of admission.  If you’ve never seen Roy in action, you’re missing out.  This guy makes you laugh without saying a word.

Rob's parents are balloons of egotism and inattention waiting to explode.  His father is given to self-congratulation for his foresight in buying and selling stocks at precisely the right moment, like Intel at $5.  Rob is always hoping they will go on the next appointment in London.  Says Papa: "If I get a call from London, get me pronto." Max (now dressed as a nurse) answers, "We don't have any pronto."

A closet lecher, the elder Brewster also becomes more interested in what female flesh might be viewed in the changing rooms.  And both parents are so willfully naive they cling to the scam even as it unravels.  When son Rob confesses that he's not a doctor but is a fraud, his mother helpfully responds, "Oh, you're a psychiatrist."

Whaley and Heath, despite tough competition for laughs, play their parts well.  Oblivious to confessions, blind to their son’s real desires and faults, they round out the chaos.

Action never flags in Playing Doctor, but the authors speed it up in the second of three acts.  Papa Brewster wants his son to "cure" the ailments of his crazy brother Harold (Kevin Kenkel).  When Rob says he's suffering from a syndrome that is turning him into a dog, Harold goes along with the self-fulfilling prophesy, down on all fours and howling.  Harold also pulls off the biggest laugh in the show. "Where does it hurt?" Harold: "Everywhere." "What hurts most?" Harold (two-beat pause, with tears) "When people don't understand me."  The final actor to take the stage, his performance was definitely worth the wait.

Directors Jack Mitchell and A.J. Bierman must have had a blast with this cast.  I can only imagine the improv that went on during rehearsals.  Libby Williams and Cindy Bierman certainly had their work cut out for them on costumes, but it was well worth it to see Jimmy burst through the door each time as the next patient.

If your funny bone needs a fix, I prescribe attendance at this production.  Buy tickets for your entire family – for grandma and grandpa as well as your pre-teens.  Playing Doctor is blissfully free of any thoughtful message and seeks only to make you laugh.

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