Perry Players presents ‘Run For Your Wife’

Take a taxi cab driver who happens to be living a double life with two wives and a helpful neighbor, and it is the making of a very British farce.

Perry Players presents “Run For Your Wife,” which opens Friday.

If the play sounds familiar, director Carol Strandburg directed it back in 1997.

“My husband and I went to London and saw it. We said, ‘we’ve got to do this show,’ ” she said.

Nineteen years later, Strandburg will bring the comedy back to Perry.

“It is the funniest play I’ve ever done,” she said.

John Smith is a taxi driver, played by Chris Kemp. Smith has two wives in two cities. He has a specific schedule to be able to maintain his ruse, and that schedule is disrupted by a mugging in which Smith ends up in the hospital.

His neighbor in Wimbleton Stanley Gardner, played by Mark Strandburg, tries to help Smith by deflecting questions from detectives and from his wife Mary Smith, played by Kris Webling.

Webling is from England and has helped the cast with accents.

“One of the challenges is strong Southern accents,” Strandburg said.

The other challenge is the comedic timing of each of the cast members. Through slamming doors, people coming into the room, people going out of the room and making sure lines are delivered at the right moment are just part of Strandburg’s duty to her eight-member cast.

“This story is a farce. They are always so convoluted and unreal,” she said.

At the previous showing, the play was one of the highest attended shows at Perry Players. Strandburg hopes that this time around will bring the same kind of success.

“It’s just really funny,” she said.

This story was originally published October 30, 2016 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Perry Players presents ‘Run For Your Wife’."