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Photo: Andrew Propp
Earlier this week I mentioned how much I love farce in our We Love DC Theater Preview. I blame Lauren Cochran, my high school drama teacher who managed to lure me away from the soccer team to the drama club through the works of Michael Frayn, Ken Ludwig, and Peter Shaffer. I don’t know if it is the frenetic action, the slapstick, or the absurd plot twists. There’s nothing more I enjoy than a good night of farce and when you add British accents, it’s just more cherries on top of the bacon sundae.
Constellation Theatre Company opened their 2012-2013 season with Alan Ayckbourn’s Taking Steps, a British Farce with many of the ingredients mentioned above. Armed with the right comedic elements and a unique theatre-in-the-round staging, the show does its best to rack up the laughs but suffers from a bloated plot and a lumbering pace.