FST’s ‘Comedy of Tenors’ works hard for laughs

Years ago, I had an opportunity to take an in-depth acting class at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory, where I learned some valuable lessons about the nature of comedy and how important honesty and believability are to bring out the humor. The harder an actor tries to be funny on stage and the broader the performances without a sense of the real stakes involved, the less the audience will be laughing.

I was reminded of those lessons Tuesday night watching Florida Studio Theatre’s summer-ending production of “A Comedy of Tenors.” It is a recent play by Ken Ludwig that is a sort of a follow-up to his first big hit “Lend Me a Tenor” with some of the same characters returning.

You don’t have to know the first play to follow the new one, which has some funny moments, but rarely allows you to believe the characters are facing crucial moments in their lives that require desperate and over-the-top reactions.

In this newer work, producer Henry Saunders is in Paris to present the biggest opera concert ever staged with three tenors expected to fill a stadium in the 1930s. One of them is the temperamental Italian singer Tito Merelli, who is expected to share the stage with Saunders’ son-in-law and former assistant, Max, and an unseen Swedish tenor who drops out just hours before the concert in a huff.

As Saunders tries to find a replacement, petty jealousies between Tito and his wife, Maria, mistaken identities, misunderstandings about overheard conversations and the well-timed arrival of Tito’s doppleganger keep a Paris hotel room busy as the various parties get ready for the concert.

There are chuckles here and there in Sean Daniels’ production, but there’s no sense of the urgency Saunders faces to get the concert off in a hitch. An unexpected sense of calmness fills the air, even though the minutes are ticking down. Saunders has some problems to deal with but they don’t seem to be career-ending.

As played by Andrew Benator, Saunders bellows and bluffs from the start, perhaps expecting the worst, but his situation rarely reaches the apoplectic stage. Likewise, the bickering and bantering between Aaron Muñoz as Tito and the adorable Jennifer Cody as Maria seems more manufactured than natural, as does the arrival of Lucy Lavely as a Russian singer, who creates some new complications that don’t really elevate the situation, even if she generates some laughs with her diva-ish behavior.

Michael Perrie Jr. as Max, along with Hank Von Kolnitz as the singer Carlo, and Alanna Smith as Tito’s daughter, Mimi, deliver more grounded performances.

Muñoz does impressive double duty in the production, playing both Tito and a singing bellhop named Beppo who is recruited to replace him when Tito decides to quit the concert. Muñoz walks into one bedroom as Tito and emerges from the other side of the stage seconds later as Beppo, and does a terrific job of making the two men different enough so that you feel you’re watching two different actors. I kept hoping we would have an opportunity to see them on stage together.

The plot meanders on its way to an upbeat conclusion, followed by a reprise of a clever trick from the original “Lend Me a Tenor” as the cast silently reprises all the key moments in a lively, fast-moving final scene before the curtain calls.

The production is staged on an attractive and sturdy hotel set by Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay that has several doors that get slammed, though not as often as you might anticipate for a quasi-farce. And that look is matched by the period elegance of Daniel Ciba’s costumes. But looks take you only so far with this comedy of tenors.

‘A Comedy of Tenors’

By Ken Ludwig. Directed by Sean Daniels. Reviewed Aug. 8. Extended through Aug. 27. Florida Studio Theatre’s Gompertz Theatre, 1265 First St., Sarasota. $25-$39. 941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Actors try too hard to be funny in FST’s ‘A Comedy of Tenors’