Animal Crackers

HARPO PRODUCTION Brennan rides Stanley Wayne Mathis.

Photo: Eric Y. Exit

The sleight of hand on display in the Goodman’s revival of this 1928 Marx Brothers vehicle is staggering, and that’s not even counting Harpo’s card tricks. The plot of Animal Crackers, the onetime vaudeville troupe’s third Broadway outing (and later the brothers’ second film), involves a Long Island society party and various bait-and-switch schemes surrounding a valuable painting; in the fashion of the day, the Marxes’ anarchic comedy blends, sometimes forcedly, with ballads, dance numbers and ingenue couplings.

Wishcamper’s innovation is to whittle the cast down to a hardworking ensemble of nine, all of whom double or triple. (The 1982 production at D.C.’s Arena Stage, the play’s first major revival, had a cast of 33.) The conceit turns the show into a high-stakes game of three-card monte, effectively intensifying the farce. The entire ensemble is terrific and vital; Joey Slotnick disappears entirely into his Groucho character, a calm and quick-on-his-feet commander of the insanity, while Molly Brennan perfectly captures Harpo’s bizarre presence and Ora Jones is spot-on in the Margaret Dumont role. Musical director Doug Peck and his six-piece band take center stage, while choreographer John Carrafa and costume designer Jenny Mannis contribute inventive work. The production stumbles a bit near the end, when Wishcamper fails to clearly delineate the problematic costume-ball pageant, but for the most part Crackers is pure pleasure: Like Harpo, it’s always got another ace up its sleeve.

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