Review: WE'RE NO ANGELS Is Devilishly Delightful Comedy of Good and Bad Manners

We're just a fortnight beyond the Twelve Days of Christmas, but it's never too late for an Epiphany, is it? In that spirit, Don Bluth Front Row Theatre has extended the holiday season with the worthy gift of WE'RE NO ANGELS, a light-hearted homage to the blessing of random ~ and fortuitous ~ acts of kindness.

The epiphany lies in the revelation that such acts may emanate from the most unexpected and surprising of quarters ~ or, in this case, threes!

Sure, the apt example is that of the Magi bearing gifts to the baby in the manger. But, in Samuel and Bella Spewack's 1953 play (actually entitled MY THREE ANGELS), Christmas Eve and the fate of a benign but incurably muddled general store manager and his family are salvaged by the wits of three convicts on work release.

If the concept, sounds familiar, it should. The Spewacks (collaborators of such long ago Broadway hits as Boy Meets Girl and Kiss Me, Kate) based their work on Albert Husson's La Cuisine Des Anges and, in turn, inspired the 1955 film with Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, and Peter Ustinov and the heavily adapted 1989 remake with Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, and Demi Moore. Quite the shelf life! And, with a spirited cast of local actors, director Gary Caswell has blown the dust off the script and ensured that ANGELS is a gift that keeps on giving.

The Ducotel family is in dire financial straits. The master of the house, Felix Ducotel (played with endearing fallibility by Lee Cooley) is sweating financial bullets in French Guiana's 104 degree heat as he anticipates the arrival of bullish cousin Henri Trochard (Caswell) who has threatened to close the business. To add insult to injury, Trochard's nephew Paul is following in uncle's footsteps and jilting Felix's daughter (April Rideout) for an heiress.

If it is possible to offset their crimes with good behavior, Jules the wife-murderer (Brandon Sibetang), Joseph the swindler (Timothy Pittman), and killer Alfred (Calion Maston), who've been fiddling on the roof, rise to the challenge with an intervention that takes the financially pressed Ducotel family off the hook of debt and default.

WE'RE NO ANGELS is a crispy chestnut at the core of which are some practical messages about fidelity, greed, and humility. A good deal of fun, the show continues its run through February 18th.

Photo credit to Don Bluth Front Row Theatre