Review: TKD’s ‘My Three Angels’: Criminally Fun

The Christmas season is upon us, which means a slew of holiday productions are slated for Knoxville’s stages. Among these is Theatre Knoxville Downtown’s run of My Three Angels, an unexpected show among the more popular Christmas titles. Director Lisa Silverman’s tropical take on this season’s stage festivities is a rollicking change of pace from our beloved yet sentimental standard holiday fare, reminding us that laughter is an important part of Christmas cheer. 

Samuel and Bella Spewack’s 1953 My Three Angels, adapted from the French La Cuisine des agnes by Albert Husson, follows the Ducotel family as they struggle to make ends meet in early 20^th century French Guiana, a penal colony on the northeastern coast of South America. Felix, the patriarch of the family played by Dave Wasil, is a blundering businessman, sloppy with his bookkeeping and liberal with his customers’ lines of credit. Emile, his wife played by Rebecca Overbay, is at her wit’s end with the sweltering climate and her husband’s enlisting of three prisoners to repair their general store’s roof. Mary Lousie, their daughter played by Kelby Cox, is caught in a potential love triangle with her beloved Paul, played by Chase Drews, and Paul’s uncle Henri Trochard, played by Bill Howard, is determined to finally run the Ducotel General Store into the ground. Thankfully, the three convicts hired to repair the roof—Joseph, Jules, and Alfred—take pity on the family and each use their unique criminal talents to help the family get back on its feet. What begins with small, well-meaning schemes and machinations here and there soon gets preposterously out of hand. 

Wasil and Overbay complement each other well as the Ducotels, reluctant to accept the convicts’ help until their schemes work surprisingly well—then they just roll with it. They honestly have no choice: Dave Andrews as Joseph, Kevin Cannon as Jules, and Anthony DiFelice as Alfred are unstoppable forces, taking the reins of the Christmas dinner, Mary Louise’s romance, and the Ducotel General Store with suave confidence. Cox’s Mary Louise is a flighty young thing; she flits about the stage with angst and excitement. Drews’s Paul is stoic and cold, hiding his true feelings—or lack thereof—from Mary Louise; it’s hard to imagine how she could possibly be in love with him, and Drews pulls off that detachment so well. And Howard’s Henri is downright evil; he nearly spits his venomous lines, close to trembling with disgust at how Felix has run his business and his own willingness to see the whole thing crumble to the ground, unaware of how his antagonism to the Ducotels and their new criminal confidants—their three guardian angels—might come back to bite him. Perhaps quite literally.

This production takes a few visual cues from the film version, We’re No Angels. The Ducotel home is a warm space with slightly tropical accents. Set Designer Steven O’Shea features a large cane ladder on the left side of the stage, from which these “angels” descend from the roof, with a spotlight highlighting them in tableau. Costumer Sarah Campbell clads the Ducotels in 20^th century garb, our friendly criminal masterminds in scruffy linen uniforms complete with straw panama hats, and overdressed Henri and Paul in luxurious red velvets, completely impractical for the South American climate and completely within character. 

My Three Angels offers Knoxville’s theatre scene something different this holiday season, so if you’re in for a laugh, this is where to get it. It runs until December 15 with showings on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are available at their box office, located at 800 South Central Street, or online at https://theatreknoxville.com/my-three-angels/.