Theatre in Review: The Explorers Club (Manhattan Theatre Club/City Center Stage I)"Science! Science! Hail to Science!" So sing the assemblage of great Victorian minds convened by playwright Nell Benjamin at the beginning of The Explorers Club. However, Benjamin wastes no time in making clear that their collective intellectual achievements are less than majestic. The Professors Cope and Walling, both of them naturalists, are so busy doting on their species of choice -- snakes for one, guinea pigs for the other -- that they can't be bothered to collect any data on them. Professor Sloane, the group's éminence grise and an expert in "archeotheology," is bent on proving that the Irish are the lost tribe of Israel. The club's leader, Harry Percy, is the sole returnee -- the death rate on his expeditions is astonishingly high -- from a trip to discover the West Pole. This means that the East Pole will be child's play to locate, he adds; he will simply take the locations of other three poles and "triangulate." This last bit of logic is especially appalling to Lucius Fretway, the only member of this pseudoscientific menagerie who is in full possession of his senses. A botanist, Lucius has named his latest discovery after the woman he loves, a romantic gesture undermined by the fact that prolonged exposure to the plant results in euphoria followed by intense itching and coma-like states. The object of Lucius' affection, Phyllida Spotte-Hume, is bucking to become the first female member of The Explorers Club, a notion that the regulars don't take well. Unlike most of them, however, Phyllida has a real accomplishment to her credit: Having discovered a lost city with an unpronounceable name, she has brought back a real-life aborigine. (His name is equally unsayable, so Phyllida calls him Luigi.) With his white-and-blue-dyed skin, stern demeanor, and bizarre manners -- his idea of a casual hello involves a hard slap to the face -- Luigi is something of a conversation stopper. Luckily, Phyllida has discovered that Luigi's people worship objects that resemble cutlery; she only needs to produce a spoon to bring him to his knees. One part Ealing Studios comedy, one part New Yorker cartoon, with a healthy dash of Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Explorers Club traces in rib-tickling fashion the chain of events set off by Phyllida's appearance with Luigi, which leads to Lucius, Percy, and their colleagues' being held prisoner in their headquarters, surrounded by the British Army, a gang of Irish terrorists, and a legion of ticked-off Buddhist monks. The play arrived in New York trailing clouds of publicity that framed it as an act of feminist subversion, but, really, Benjamin has pulled off something much more audacious: She has penned an old-fashioned, honest-to-God farce. It's the trickiest of theatrical genres, which helps explain its relative rarity, but the author has a real knack for it, planting amusingly absurdist gags inside a solidly constructed narrative of ever-mounting mayhem. Without expert colleagues, Benjamin's comedy could quickly prove to be self-conscious and cloying, but, under Marc Bruni's buoyant direction, a highly skilled cast deftly deadpans its way through the maze-like plot. Jennifer Westfeldt pulls off a nifty double turn as staunch, self-willed Phyllida and her twin sister, an imperious aristocrat who doesn't believe in lady scientists. Lorenzo Pisoni's talent for physical comedy is put to good use as Lucius, whose klutzy manner and refusal to make things up puts him at a disadvantage with the others. David Furr is deliciously fatuous as Harry, who doesn't bother with facts and who thinks he can take women the same way he seizes on his latest discovery. ("I once named a mountain after an attractive servant girl. Got nowhere.") As Sloane, whose pet name for Phyllida is "harlot," John McMartin offers a master class in how to throw away laugh lines for maximum effect. Arnie Burton has a riotous second-act turn as the rare survivor of one of Harry's expeditions, who turns up with revenge on his mind. And that supreme chameleon, Carson Elrod, deploys his considerable scene-stealing skills as Luigi, most notably in a brilliantly executed bit of farce in which Luigi, disguised as the club's bartender, tosses liquor-filled tumblers at the frantic membership. Remarkably, not a drop is spilled; even more remarkably, the gag is repeated three times without growing stale. It all unfolds on Donyale Werle's gorgeously paneled two-level set, which is amusingly overstuffed with examples of taxidermy, elephant tusks, and august portraits; it's a museum of the British Empire as assembled by a deft satirist. Philip Rosenberg's lighting burnishes every detail with warm bursts of sunshine. Anita Yavich's costumes include some outstanding examples of men's tailoring and wildly contrasting outfits for Phyllida and her glamorous sister. And, aided by Tom Watson (wigs and hair) and Angelina Avallone (makeup), she comes up with a look for Luigi that you won't soon forget. Darron L West's sound design blends a handful of effects -- guns, angry crowds -- with reinforcement for Laurence O'Keefe's witty incidental music. The Explorers Club ends, as must all good farces, with order of a sort restored, but the cozy male power structure has been overthrown. "The National Geographic boys will be laughing at us," frets Harry. Audiences will be only too happy to join in the laughter.--David Barbour 
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