STEVE MARTIN’S THE UNDERPANTS
Adapted from the classic comedy by Carl Sternheim
NOW EXTENDED THRU OCT 30TH!!!
Custom Made Theatre Company kicks off its 13th season with the San Francisco premiere of wild & crazy guy Steve Martin’s The Underpants, a hilarious, laugh-out-loud farce, directed by Hal Gelb.
SteveMartin, the man who brought us Picasso at the Lapin Agile, went back to his European muse for The Underpants, his adaptation of the popular 1910 farce by German writer Carl Sternheim, then titled Die Hose. It meant underpants then, and it still does, with all the naughty plot turns that had German Herrrenguffawing and their Frauen blushing into their puffy sleeves.
The New York Daily News wrote “Not since Monica Lewinsky’s thong has a pair of panties caused such a national fuss.”
As the play opens, Theo Maske, an officious, puritanical bureaucrat, berates his wife, Louise, for allowing her underpants to fall to the ground at a parade for the king. Theo frets that he and Louise will be financially ruined and become social outcasts from the inevitable scandal. But before long, besotted men appear at Maske’s door to rent a room – and, unnoticed by the proprietor, to seduce his wife. As scandal erupts into spectacle, the characters reflect, and reflect upon, our fascination with fame, our reliance on gender roles, and our enslavement by sex.
Custom Made Theatre takes on this classic, expressionist farce that shows1910 to be as naughty as today – maybe even more so. The New York Daily News wrote “Not since Monica Lewinsky’s thong has a pair of panties caused such a national fuss.” Of course the Daily News would say that, and if they’d had the story in 1910, it would have been on page one.
tickets at https://www.custommade.org/ tickets
PRODUCTION PHOTOS
The Underpants press photos. Click on the thumbnails below for a high-resolution version ; Photos: Jay Yamada, 2011