Given the basic situation of Emily Jane O'Dell's "What the Eunuch Saw," it would seem to be bristling with comic possibilities. In a bedroom of a besieged palace in a medieval kingdom, the Queen (Shana Harvey) has a special problem: She has to have sex every hour--chimes sound and she announces, "It's medicine time." As a result, the King (John Krasinski) and the Eunuch (Randall T. Sullivan) have become very creative with disguises to vary the appetite of the Queen, who, happily, doesn't see too well. Toss into the salad a Traveler (Jorge Cordova) who is after the Crown Jewels and a randy Drunk (David Edison) who is after the Queen--and the rest should be fun.
The fact that the show doesn't deliver the fun it promises can be blamed on a bloated script that is very much a hybrid. It mixes farce with low comedy (copulation, flatulence, and testicular references), some commedia dell'arte physical high jinks, plus the odd touch of Monty Python craziness. The mix might just have worked if the whole play were much crisper and swifter. No pun intended, but this is a work ripe for pruning. The plot needs tidying into a ridiculousness that is logical and more coherent. Given the outrageousness of the premise, the pace should be reckless. At present, the audience has much too much time to think.
The director, Isaac Robert Hurwitz, keeps the lively cast very physically active. Some more stylization might have helped--Harvey's strange British accent is in the right direction. Sullivan has a bright stage presence that here has to labor for too little effect. As in other Fringe Festival comic entries this year, there is a singular lack of wit, and little effort to even try for it. There's one likeable line: says the King of an impersonation, "My midget king was good--it was all in the kneepads."