Theatre in Review: Old Hats (Pershing Square Signature Center)

	Nellie McKay, David Shiner, Bill Irwin. Photo: Joan Marcus

The title is Old Hats, and, in truth, neither of its principal clowns is a kid anymore; nevertheless, the mood on stage at the Signature Theatre is younger than springtime, thanks to the uninhibited hilarity of Bill Irwin and David Shiner doing what they do best. The foremost -- and perhaps the last -- practitioners of silent vaudeville comedy have returned in a something-old-something-new evening of pandemonium that is a lead-pipe cinch to keep the audience in stitches.

From the opening moment, in which Irwin and Shiner appear on the lam, Indiana Jones-style, from an enormous rolling boulder (one of the many witty projections by Wendall K. Harrington), they are engaged in an evening-long game of one-upmanship -- first with competitive hat tricks and soon after by trying, using remote controls, to shut each other out of the spotlight. (The props grow more outrageous as the show goes along; at one point, Irwin is dragged offstage, right under the show curtain, by unseen forces; a second later, Shiner emerges holding an enormous magnet with Irwin's pants attached.)

In one of the timeliest of the new pieces, they appear as opponents in a presidential debate, each trying to outpander the other with increasingly overt displays of patriotism -- flags, eagles, etc. Later, when it all turns ugly, Irwin executes a masterstroke by apparently obtaining from Shiner a pair of white boxers adorned with a red hammer and sickle; Joe McCarthy could do no better. In another sketch, as fellow commuters waiting for a train, they fall into an argument that makes each mysteriously grow taller or shorter depending on who has the upper hand. ()

If you have a horror of audience participation, best to sit farther back, as Irwin and Shiner draw many viewers into their mayhem. A sketch featuring Shiner as an oily, skirt-chasing magician and Irwin as his lovely female assistant features the former working the front row in search of a compliant date; later, a viewer is summoned up to the stage, only to be sawn in half -- a bit that finds them frantically trying to restore their victim back to one piece. The most venerable sketch, "Cowboy Cinema," in which Shiner recruits four stooges to take part in a scene from a Western film under his abusive direction, remains foolproof. (I've seen it four times, and it never fails to deliver.) At my performance, Shiner had a quartet of highly cooperative "actors," including a "hero" who had a riotously difficult time dealing with a recalcitrant pair of saloon doors.

The stars each have their solo moments, too, especially Irwin as a businessman with an adversarial relationship to his iPad, and Shiner as a hobo who conjures the love of his life using a bottle, a piece of soiled white silk, and a brown paper bag. The biggest surprise is the addition of a new playmate in the form of Nellie McKay, who acts as musical director, songstress, and ad hoc authority figure. ("Boys, be good clowns," she says, in the tone of voice usually reserved for cranky, sleep-deprived five-year-olds.) A protean personality -- she can sound like a '40s-era band singer, a red-hot mama, or a girl sophisticated in the Blossom Dearie manner -- she paces the action with a series of deadpan musical delights, including an uptempo number about visiting violence on one's beloved, a tribute to the romantic possibilities of bodegas, and a little ditty that begins with "Feminists don't have a sense of humor" and ends with "I'm Michele Bachmann and I approve this message.")

Working with accomplished artists who have created, and, in some cases, curated their own material, it's a little difficult to assess the contribution of the director, Tina Landau. In any case, she keeps the fun moving at a fast clip, and she has also overseen an inventive production design. G. W. Mercier's scenery includes a red false proscenium and matching velvet curtain, and when the latter is up, a charming empty vaudeville house look. Peter Kaczorowski's lighting provides a series of attractive looks. John Gromada's sound design involves a cascade of effects, including police sirens, the voice of a 911 operator, an arriving train, and intense sound for the opening cliffhanger sequence. Harrington's projections make their own contribution to the high laugh count.

The obvious point of comparison for these two clowns is Laurel and Hardy, not because Irwin and Shiner resemble the great Stan and Ollie, but because the comedy of both teams is rooted in a carefully controlled hostility. Shiner is usually the aggressor, with Irwin taking on the role of outraged virtue, his mouth dropping open in a hundred different expressions of astonishment, although he also has many sneaky ways of exacting revenge. (In one pearly moment, he guides Shiner offstage, ramming him into the proscenium in the process; it was all an accident, you see. Really, an accident.) The comedy is marked by an almost total absence of sentimentality, and it is all the better for it. Aided by McKay, they prove that there are no hats like old hats when it comes to the business of making an audience laugh.--David Barbour