Review: BOUNCERS Dances Back to Boston

Long known as the peacekeepers at nightclubs and discotheques, the private security guards commonly known as bouncers are the subject and title of the long-running British play by John Godber, now being presented in a naturalistic production by Visual City LLC and the Modern Theatre at Suffolk University.

A prominent English playwright and director, Godber wrote the original humorous and insightful version of “Bouncers” in 1977 as a two-hander, later expanding it into a four-character piece that has become one of the most often produced plays in the U.K. Indeed, it might well be described as a cousin of shows like “The Mouse Trap,” the longest-running play in the world and a fixture in British theater, “Shear Madness, which played Boston for 40 years, and “Perfect Crime,” at 39 years and counting off-Broadway.

In Boston, “Bouncers,” less frequently produced in the U.S., is under the vibrant direction of Somerville-born director Bill Doncaster, whose history with the play began in 1991, not long after he graduated from college in Chicago and was exploring becoming a playwright. By 2013, Doncaster and fellow producer Sam Seidel, a onetime Cambridge City Councilor, had decided to mount their first production of the show with Stickball Productions at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge.

The venue was well suited to the play, and a new and different theater audience was fueling strong business at the box office until the Boston Marathon bombing shut the area down, necessitating the show’s early closure. This year, with original Cambridge cast manager Joe Siriani back, business resumed – this time in downtown Boston, where “Bouncers” is once again pulling back the curtain on the Friday night doings at a seedy, working-class nightspot in northern England.

Siriani, who spent his childhood in Arlington, Charlestown, Cambridge, and Somerville, is terrific as the barrel-chested Lucky Eric, oldest of the bouncers and the one who keeps the other characters – Bradley Belanger as Judd, Michael Ferrari as Ralph, and Liam McCarron as Les – in line. The four actors, all of whom play multiple characters, are well matched as the testosterone-pumping doormen, with plenty of tough-guy swagger and British accents to go around, not to mention dolled-up gals, boisterous man-boys, and even a kebab vendor.

Bringing the dance club to life are some free-spirited dance moves choreographed by Joanne “Mrs. JoJo” Caidor, which sex up the underground atmosphere gay audiences may find reminiscent of the old Paradise in Cambridge, and some simulated sex scenes involving Ferrari and a busy bathroom stall.

Beneath the smokey surface is a story of late 1970s, early 1980s disco culture, with its Quiana glamor popularized by films like “Saturday Night Fever” and “54,” combating the dreariness of working lives, the attempt to escape from which was once a Friday night ritual. Godber’s spirited script and Doncaster’s clever direction have turned that predictable routine into one of joyful abandon evident when the audience joined the actors letting loose on the Modern Theater stage at the show’s recent press night.

The tuxedos, by Keezer’s Classic Clothing of Cambridge, add style to the overall look of the production, which further benefits from the nightclub lighting by designer Anthony Phelps and pulsating on-point sound design by Deleyah Creese and Jacques Matellas.

More on Modern Theatre At Suffolk University

Upcoming Shows

BOUNCERS by John Godber

10/1 - 10/24/2026

BOUNCERS

10/1 - 10/24/2026

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