A farce lavish with words, stingy with laughs

Time-honored recipe for farce:

At least four doors. Check.

Dead bodies, room temperature. Check.

Mistaken identities. Check.

Twins. Check.

Foreign accents, preferably faux French. Check.

Meek husband. Check.

Tyrannical wife. Check.

Sexual ambiguities. Check.

Whip all ingredients into froth at great speed.

Add funny.

Whoops.

I knew they forgot something. You think the Acme's still open?

Curio Theatre's artistic directors, Jared Reed (who also directed the production) and Paul Kuhn, wrote A Funeral Farce, and Curio's production has a jolly premise and an able cast.

The plot unravels in a funeral parlor where the proprietors, Randall Fasbow (CJ Keller) and Millicent Fasbow (Jennifer Summerfield), have each, unbeknownst to the other, booked a funeral for 2 p.m.

The bereaved Mr. White, with an "i" (Liam Castellan), expects to have his wife cremated. The relieved Mrs. Whyte, with a "y" (Cyndi Janzen), expects to have her husband buried, after a make-over of the corpse by the French mortician (Newton Buchanan). The newly hired knockout of a secretary (Erika Hicks) is pursued by everyone, and, desperate to keep her job, tries to accommodate everyone. And off we go.

The problem is that there is simply too much talk. Everybody explains and explains and explains, after we've already gotten it, gotten it, gotten it. Some people in the audience were chuckling away, but some weren't even smiling. What you want with farce is helpless hilarity, and despite the best efforts, that just didn't happen.

The set, designed by Paul Kuhn, features a nice selection of urns as well as an ample number of doors, but the performance space, built in the former sanctuary of a large church, is plagued by the difficult acoustics of the soaring, domed ceiling.

Presented by Curio Theatre Company at Sanctuary of Calvary Church, 815 S. 48th St. Through May 17. Tickets $10-$15. Information: www.curiotheatre.org or 215-525-1350.

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