Anne Bowles, as the young housewife Louise, and Nigel Reed, as gentleman poet Frank Versati, share a passionate embrace. (photo: Christopher O. Banks)

'Underpants': Steve Martin's Top-Drawers Adaptation
By Tricia Olszewski
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 12, 2003; Page C09

Steve Martin saw something timeless in German satirist Carl Sternheim's 1910 comedy "Die Hose." Polite society's standards of decency may have mellowed, and our tolerance of exposed skin has unquestionably increased. But nearly a century after Sternheim's work was first staged, a particular line is still drawn: It's just bad taste to let one's knickers fall down in public.

This scandal lies at the heart of the Washington Stage Guild's delightful production of "The Underpants," Martin's adaptation of the Sternheim play. It's 1913 in a bright apartment in Duesseldorf, Germany, and young housewife Louise (Anne Bowles) had been innocently waving to the king during a parade when she became the victim of a wayward undergarment.

The offending underpants rested about her ankles for only a few seconds, but Louise's priggish husband, Theo (Michael Glenn), predicts that the mishap will ruin him, jeopardizing his job as a respectable government clerk and certainly affecting his ability to rent out the couple's spare room.

Louise actually ends up becoming something of a celebrity, however, with her moment of indelicacy stirring passion in those who witnessed it, including gentleman poet Frank Versati (Nigel Reed) and nebbish barber Benjamin Cohen (Chris Davenport). Both arrive at Louise's door with the hope of becoming her tenant and perhaps lover, and their fervor makes Louise realize how desperately bored she is with her loveless, by-the-numbers home life.

"The Underpants" fortifies its scenes from a marriage with commentary on the working class, gender roles, the power of fame and anti-Semitism (Benjamin tells Theo that his last name is Cohen "with a K"). Theo, who's portrayed with exuberant obnoxiousness by Glenn, is a villain for the ages, the navel-gazing blowhard who's so busy preaching about how he thinks things ought to be that he's blind to the needs of others. Ninety years ago, however, Louise would have been an unlikely heroine, a proto-feminist who hesitantly emerges from her shell and is thrilled to discover that she has both a brain and a libido. Bowles's transformation from timid to sexually starving is unabashed; one of the production's biggest laughs comes when her desperate plea of "Take me!" to the verse-obsessed Versati is answered by Reed's equally ardent cry, "Yes, I will take you -- and transform you into words!"

Unmentionables aren't the only things that fall in "The Underpants." The story may not be a Martin original, but his comedic presence is conjured onstage with high-low salaciousness and witty, sometimes self-referencing dialogue (when a neighbor says she just came from a Sternheim play and Louise asks whether she should see it, the neighbor advises, "Wait till it's adapted"). More evocative, however, is the ever-present physical comedy, which is brilliantly executed by the production's gifted cast, who flop and swoon on Tracie Duncan's tidy kitchen and living room set with gusto -- making this "Underpants" well worth a glimpse.

The Underpants, by Carl Sternheim. Adapted by Steve Martin. Directed by Steven Carpenter. Costumes, William Pucilowsky; lighting, Marianne Meadows; sound, Marcus Darnley. Approximately 90 minutes. Through Dec. 7 at Arena Stage, 1901 14th St. NW. Call 240-582-0050.