Get Out: Macha Monkey's Franklin and Figaro

Kristina Sutherland's Franklin and Figaro is the type of play that gets a regular theatre-goer excited: A clever original script, expertly produced by a small theatre company, with a strong cast of local actors. This is what fringe theatre was supposed to be but rarely managed.

Subtitled "a revolutionary farce," Franklin and Figaro is set in the pre-Revolutionary France of 1776; the playwright Jean Beaumarchais—who wrote the populist classics The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville—is on the verge of critical and financial success. The Barber of Seville is about to be produced at the Comédie-Française, the pre-eminent theatre in France. Meanwhile, he's come up with a financial deal that promises to make him rich at the same time he satisfies his politically radical ideals: Selling arms to the American revolutionaries.

The problems begin when his contact is replaced by the fledgling American government's new man on the ground in France: the scientist, writer, Founding Father and lecher, Benjamin Franklin.

A curiosity amongst the Parisian intelligentsia by virtue of being a world-class intellectual from a colonial backwater, Franklin (who never actually appears in the play) becomes the toast of the town. And his busy social schedule doesn't seem to allow for him to get around to closing the deal with Beaumarchais, whose arms supplier is impatiently awaiting payment, whose producer is demanding revisions to gut the political vision of his play, and whose actress wife is demanding the lead role in the show, which he's gifted to the talentless niece of his financial benefactress whose pull, as the wife of the French minister of state, will be crucial if he's to get his shipment of guns out of the country.

Kristina Sutherland's script demonstrates both diverse literary talents and an actor's appreciation for the demands of the stage. A lot of productions get bogged down by complex set changes demanded by the story; Sutherland embraces the episodic nature of the plot, covering scene changes with puppetry, music, and a narrator who speaks in cleverly rhymed couplets.

By and large, the actors efficiently play to type without taking a lot of risks: James Weidman's Beaumarchais is a delightfully befuddled sweet-talker trying to channel Hugh Grant; as his mistress Gabrielle, Tinka Jonakova is breathless and guileless-seeming. James Hamerlinck as Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, is heavy on the gravitas but doesn't quite pull off the character's sinister edge. Jody McCoy's aging Madame Du Deffand, whose salon—the most prestigious in Paris—is being usurped by an up-and-comer, is sympathetic and pathetic at the same time.

But we wouldn't be the first critic to admit that actor Martin Dinn steals the show as the occasional narrator. The role is sort of dual, taking place both within the story, as the lead player in Madame Du Deffand's salon troupe, and outside of it, addressing the audience directly. His verse monologues are carefully crafted and some of the wittiest lines in the play, and Dinn owns them, dominating the stage.

There's not much to complain about with this show, which starts the second half of its run this Thursday. The plot progresses at a clip and the production makes good use of the familiar limited resources of a fringe theatre. A few of the actors seemed to be off the night we attended, but we've seen people do worse at bigger theatres, with more expensive tickets and less satisfying plays.

East Hall Theatre, 915 E. Pine St., 2nd Floor // tickets $15 // Thurs-Sat, 8 pm // thru Nov. 17