My Goodness!! An old-fashioned comedy. You remember — funny lines, many laughs, real wit, good timing, no stupidity, no four-letter words, no violence, two intermissions.
That's "My Three Angels," a 1953 Broadway success and a 1955 movie (re-titled "We're No Angels") that has been frequently revived ever since. It opened over the weekend as a St. Louis Actors Studio production at the Gaslight Theater, to run through Dec. 18. Originally a French farce, "Les Cuisines des Anges," by Albert Husson, "My Three Angels," was written for Broadway by the husband-wife team of Samuel and Bella Spewack. The movie version credited Husson as the author, with a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall.
It's a simple little story. Three convicts in a French prison colony in Central America have been hired out to repair a roof. Under the roof lives a family that runs a shop on the ground floor. Felix (Larry Dell) is a poor businessman, his wife Emilie (Penney Kols) worries a lot and their daughter, Marie Louise (Emily Baker) is busy mooning over a young Frenchman (Casey Boland) whose Paris-based uncle really owns the shop and who is a capitalist who precedes the InBev management style.
The convicts, Joseph (the matchless, wide-eyed Whit Reichert), Jules (the hulking, delightful Garrett Bergfeld) and Alfred (the young, quick-to-kill Dan Mueller) hear a lot of talk from their perch on the roof, and since they're all kind, generous, lovely gentlemen despite their murderous tendencies, they decide to help the family, no matter what it takes. And it takes a lot, all carried off with style and grace under the nicely paced direction of Elizabeth Helman. Before it's over, Marie Louise finds a new love, Felix becomes wealthy and worry-free and Emilie can spend the rest of her life happily thinking about something that might have been.
The performances are solid. Reichert is a comedian blessed with perfect timing, and he's strong enough to pass some good laughs to his compatriots. Both Bergfeld and Mueller bring excellent support. Dell frets properly, Kols awakens nicely, Marie Louise pouts prettily. Richard Lewis adds spark as the miserable businessman, Teresa Doggett joins the action a couple of times as a customer who doesn't like to pay her bills but does like to buy things, usually with a flounce here and there, and Casey Boland handles two minor roles in proper style, though he was simply too muddle-headed to be believed even a little bit as a frightened nephew. And some believability is vital to successful comedy.
Helman's direction works well on the minuscule Gaslight stage, and the the tech work, including Doggett's costumes, Christie Johnston's set and Steve Miller's lights, is fine.
The lines crackle with a style that was made famous on stages by such as George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, Noel Coward, George Bernard Shaw and dozens of others in the days between the World Wars, when literacy and wit were important. It's nice to be reminded of those days.
My Three Angels, a St. Louis Actors Studio production, opened Dec. 2 at the Gaslight Theater, and will run through Dec. 18
— Joe