I’m sure we’ve all been there: an unusual or unpleasant social situation where one feels like the odd man (or woman) out. I’ve survived many of these situations, but not in the way that the protagonist of Larry Shue’s 1984 comedy The Foreigner does, with well-intentioned deception that leads to humorous and unexpected consequences. Theatre Knoxville Downtown’s production of The Foreigner, directed by Courtney Woolard, entertains audiences with this familiar situation in a familiar locale—a homely fishing lodge in rural Georgia that is reminiscent of our own beloved Appalachia. It is a production well suited to its local audience that offers unexpected, relevant commentary 30 years after its Off-Broadway debut.
The entire play takes place in Meeks’s Fishing Lodge Resort in Tilghman County, Georgia, represented by a set that has been designed to feel 80s country-cabin cozy. It reminds me of my in-laws’ mountain house just an hour away, with the exposed log interior walls, raccoon and fish décor, the antique dining table where we share breakfast, and an assortment of liquors—mostly whisky—on the sideboard. It’s a familiar setting for us local theatergoers that takes on a humorous life of its own, with familiar and lovable (although perhaps a bit stereotypical) cast of characters that slip out of those stereotypes as they forge relationships in a farcically unlikely situation that is more genuine to real life than it may appear at first glance.
We are first greeted by S/Sgt “Froggy” LeSueur (Randy Thompson) and Charlie Baker (Ty Shrum), two friends who travel from England to rural Georgia for a three-day trip. Charlie is extremely shy, claims he has no personality, and does not want to engage with any others staying at the lodge; to help his friend manage that anxiety, Froggy suggests to Charlie that he act as if he does not know English. Both Thompson and Shrum are donning British accents for this performance, but Thompson should articulate and project just a bit more, especially since he is the first person on stage and responsible for establishing the story. But as the best laid plans of mice and men go, Froggy and Charlie’s clever plan goes awry, but in a wholesome and productive way. Betty Meeks (Donna Shoun), the aging and lonely proprietor of Meeks’s Fishing Lodge, finds hope through her budding friendship with Charlie. Shoun is a delightfully familiar figure on stage; she’s somebody’s nana or meemaw, and she hams up the playfully ignorant qualities of a caring but perhaps clueless denizen of a small rural community. We know Betty means well, even in her culturally insensitive interactions with Charlie, and that makes Shoun’s performance so funny and endearing. The young Catherine Simms (Kadi Bower) feels stuck and unhappy with life and is facing an unexpected pregnancy with her suave yet inattentive fiancé, the Reverend David Marshall Lee (Kyle Badgley). Bower delivers Catherine’s anger powerfully and pointedly, and she softens in Charlie’s presence, who is a great listener, mostly because he is pretending to not understand a word anyone says. Catherine’s younger brother, Ellard (Casey Cain), is terribly misunderstood, and connects with Charlie through their mutual secret that they are both more capable than they are perceived to be. Cain balances Ellard’s will to please his burdensome family with his insistence that he is capable, a triumph that he achieves in the end with Charlie’s help.
Charlie, emerging as a masterful performer in unlikely social situations, learns the family’s deepest secrets and uses them cleverly against each other for the betterment of the entire family, as well as himself. Shrum’s Charlie begins as hopelessly neurotic and antisocial, and his bodily humor in throughout the production is stellar—I was amazed at how he seems to be able to turn his face beet red on command. And that body humor becomes essential once Charlie slips into his foreigner persona, relying on gestures both invented and borrowed from his hosts for a delightful dose of slapstick humor, pantomime, and mockery at the expense of a thick southern accent. Shrum leverages his body humor and nonsense language—a smattering of vaguely Russian, German, French, and who-knows-what other sonic influences—to bring the family together and expose the dark intentions of Rev. Lee (Badgley) and his right-hand man, Owen Musser (Kevin Teffeteller). Badgley’s delivery is distinctly Old South which eerily foreshadows the later plot twist. Other hints regarding the shocking conclusion are scattered throughout, given to us mostly through Teffeteller’s kooky and conniving performance, marked with a deranged hubris that Charlie will exploit in the end. I’ve attempted to not state what this plot twist entails so far, but I believe it is an aspect of this play that audiences may want to be aware of before attending.
The American South, even the entire country, is marked by a dark history of racial and cultural discrimination that still rears its ugly head in our contemporary life. David and Owen’s secret, alluded to throughout the production, is that they are members of the ku klux klan, and are scheming to take Betty’s lodge from her to establish a headquarters and their new, white Christian world order. At the most climactic moment of the production, four white cloaked and hooded figures rush on stage to take the Lodge and its residents hostage. On one hand, The Foreigner’s portrayal of the klan is trivializing, exposing them for the ridiculous frauds they are and portraying as absurd their stereotypical beliefs about individuals or groups different from themselves. In many ways, the klan deserves this ridicule, but on the other hand, this trivializing can also do harm. A farcical portrayal of such a historically violent terrorist group diminishes the significance of the real danger and risk of death the klan posed to African Americans, Jewish people, Catholics, immigrants, queer persons, and anyone else they deemed different and unworthy. Although there might be a way around this conflict of representation in a staged production, Woolard and company remained faithful to the text with hope that the message Catherine silences David with—that no one is like Charlie, and that no one is like anyone else—emerges triumphantly by the end of the klan’s fiasco.
In the end, Charlie, the not-so-foreign foreigner, rallies Betty, Catherine, and Ellard together to subdue Owen and company, with the family expressing their love and gratitude for his entering and changing their lives for the better. Although we end on a happy note, as comedies do, we are also reminded of the dark undercurrents that sometimes flow beneath the surface of small-town Southern life. I can’t quite decide on what Woolard and company’s production is trying to do: to celebrate small town life, or to critique it, or even both. Perhaps that’s the beauty of this production—it remains ambiguous, in its faithfulness to the source text, and allows each individual audience member, like each character in The Foreigner, to learn a little something about themselves through the experiences of others.
The Foreigner is at Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 800 South Central Street, until June 16. Showtimes are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30pm, and matinees on Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are available at the box office and at https://theatreknoxville.com.
