King’s College student John Barrera from Ventura, Calif., portrays Francis, the ‘one man’ in the play ‘One Man, Two Guvnors.’
                                 Submitted photo

King’s College student John Barrera from Ventura, Calif., portrays Francis, the ‘one man’ in the play ‘One Man, Two Guvnors.’

Submitted photo

Shows are Sept. 29 through Oct. 2

Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

Snatches of songs as diverse as “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd” and “Everybody Was Kung … Fu … Figh … TING” wafted through the King’s College auditorium on a recent Tuesday evening as young actors engaged in hand-to-hand combat, a knife fight and other martial arts.

But don’t worry, the struggles on stage were about as serious as a skirmish between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

If you had any doubt of that, just listen to the sound effects — CRACK! POW! WAWP! — that were so reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote hitting the bottom of a canyon, or The Three Stooges hitting each other on the head.

“I think there’s a fight in every scene,” adjunct professor of theatre Beth Guarnieri Powers said as she watched the action in “One Man, Two Guvnors,” which opens tonight Sept. 30 at King’s.

“Every third line is a punch line,” she said. “It’s fun, it’s slapstick, and it’s based on commedia dell’arte, the grandfather of all comedy.”

Set in England in the early 1960s, “One Man, Two Guvnors” by Richard Bean is based on a 1743 play called “Servant of Two Masters” by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni.

“There’s a beautiful marriage between the acting and technical sides,” Beth Powers said. “The sound effects really sell the show.”

Beth Powers’ husband, assistant professor of theatre Jahmeel Powers, is directing the show, and said audiences familiar with commedia dell’arte will recognize certain stock chracters, from the jester who’s “streetwise but not very book smart” to the lovers to the pompous characters whose pride and/or greed will be their downfall.

The show is about a man named Francis, the “one man” of the title, who works for two different bosses. There are gangsters, love triangles, miscomunications …. and Beth Powers pointed out, audiences will enjoy it more if they don’t know too much of the plot in advance.

So we’ll just ask some of the cast members to describe the show in general terms.

“I compare it to the Three Stooges,” cast member Annarose McLaughlin said. “You’ll see similarities to Curly, you know, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. And Mo is the straight man, but he’s silly, too.”

“I feel like Harvey Korman in a Mel Brooks movie,” said John Barrera. “And sometimes it reminds me of Wallace and Gromit, especially with the accents.”

“I definitely see some of Tom and Jerry, especially in the fight scenes,” Kristopher Russin said, naming a famous cartoon cat and mouse. “You know how the bulldog beats up Tom all the time.”

There are a lot of fights in the show, cast member Jae Kraengel said, but the actors have trained to be safe. “We started doing fights at 25% speed,” she said. “Then when we got comfortable with that, we went to 50%.”

“The most contact we ever have is like this,” she said, tapping Russin’s shoulder with her hand.

Kraengel said she is majoring in theater and minoring in psychology, which prompted the question: How many of these characters are certifiably crazy?

“As far as I can see, all of them, to some extent,” she said, noting that she plays Harry, a lawyer, whom she described as a narcissist.

Creed Gorham, a 15-year-old student from Hanover Area High School, is the youngest cast member and happens to be playing the oldest character, an 87-year old.

“I just mimic my grandma. She has that ‘old person’ down to a science,” Gorham said. “Then to give it a masculine dimension, I add some ‘Robin Williams playing Mrs. Doubtfire.’ “

The high-energy action makes the show fun, said Robert Kuznicki of Lehighton, who is majoring in mechanical engineering and criminal justice. “I get to roll around; I get to hit someone with a cricket bat.”

And, sometimes, the best part of a show is just being able to try out a new role.

“I get to be the opposite of myself,” said King’s student Carrie Wagner, who plays several characters in the ensemble. “I’m kind of shy. But, yeah, they’re wild.”

Show times are at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 with matinees at 2 p.m. Oct. 1 and Oct. 2.