American idyl Tourism of errors at the Gaslight BY MEGAN GRUMBLING
	Don’t Drink the Water By Woody Allen. Directed by George Dunn. With Doree Austin, Dan Goodheart, Peter Diplock, Audrey Johnson, and Tom Dix. Produced by the Gaslight Theater at Hallowell City Hall, through Sept. 4. Call (207) 326-3698.
	BACKSTAGE • That the Irish have created some of the best things around even the most casual drinker is aware, but a new Portland theater company would like to remind us that their contributions to the proscenium have been equally intoxicating. The American Irish Repertory Ensemble (or, catchily, AIRE) aims to produce the finest in classical and contemporary Irish and Irish-American theater. And can you imagine the cast parties? Do more than imagine: They’re auditioning for their debut season on Thursday, September 9, from 4 to 9 p.m. And no, you don’t have to be Irish. Call (207) 799-5327. • Do you need a grant? Of course you do. And if you’re incorporated in Maine as a nonprofit, have 501c3 tax-exempt status, and are involved in indigenous, ethnic, or rural arts programs in Maine, the Maine Community Foundation just might have one for you. The Foundation’s Expansion Arts Fund is particularly interested in funding groups who serve areas with limited access to arts activities. Deadline is September 15. For application guidelines, go to www.mainecf.org or call (877) 700-6800.

The institution of the ugly American tourist, with the loud shirts and louder cultural gaffes, almost seems quaint these days, when most of the world sees the more relevant American ugliness as originating from a somewhat higher tax-bracket and sphere of political influence. So it’s almost nostalgic, like watching a period piece, to laugh at the ethnocentric blunders of the Hollander family, far away from their native New Jersey, in Gaslight Theater’s community production of Woody Allen’s 1966 comedy Don’t Drink the Water.

Against his own wishes to simply vacation on the Jersey shore playing pinochle, the Hollander patriarch, caterer Walter (Dan Goodheart) has taken wife Marion (Doree Austin) and daughter Susan (Audrey Johnson) on a tour through Europe. In an unnamed Eastern European country, they take a few too many pictures of a military base lined with razor wire, are marked by the Communist government as American spies, and outrun them just as far as the US Embassy. There, Ambassador Magee (Frank Omar) has left things in the hands of his incompetent son Axel (Peter Diplock, lovably hang-dog), who hasn’t managed to last more than two months in any Foreign Service job his dad’s creds have landed him. Axel doesn’t know the first thing about either getting the Hollanders back to Jersey or getting the Communists to stop burning them in effigy, but he is handy with infatuation for the Hollander’s daughter.

Our helpful narrator for all this is Father Drobney (Tom Dix), who, rather than returning to the hands of a hostile regime, has shacked up in the Embassy for the last six years practicing magic tricks.

In true Allen spirit, it’s Dad Hollander’s cranky cultural illiteracy that’s good for the bulk of the show’s dramatic conflict, and Goodheart’s Walter is such a determined sourpuss that I swear he keeps several lemons backstage to maintain that puckered mug of self-righteousness. But Goodheart also lets us see Walter’s insecurities and sympathies through the bluster, and thus lets us like Pop Hollander despite his irritating modus operandi. As Ma Hollander, Doree Austin is a bright and substantial force, downright solar in her ability to hold together the reeling bodies around her. Her presence is warm and wise enough to elevate the rather stock character Allen drew into an affectionate classic — and with the best Joisey accent I’ve heard since I don’t know when.

Dunn’s direction sets up some classically madcap physical comedy for his actors, including some slap-stick with dynamite and a pistol, and an extended consensual skirmish between Marion and Father Drobney as she tries to help him out of a Houdini escape attempt gone wrong. Dix, as the eccentric Father, has his own absurdly entertaining moments in the kinetic spotlight when he inexplicably vaults into break-dances, including one from within a full-size Lycra sack. The pacing of Allen’s script could be a little tighter, and stalls between scene changes sometimes leave us too long in the dark, but for the most part Dunn keeps the play moving with a good tumbling momentum.

He’s also taken pains to update Allen’s script for maximum modern relevance by peppering it with the political and cultural references of the moment. Axel’s dad is mad about how no one at the embassy recognized Donald Rumsfeld last weekend, Florida’s electoral failures get a jab, and W’s portrait hangs pointedly in the hallway (and gets a collective meaningful glance at Walter’s line: "Yale makes mistakes too, you know").

The script changes are good for extra laughs, and they get them with an eagerness that the rest of Allen’s rather fussy script doesn’t always, as if the audience is hungry for banter that’s more topically political.

For Don’t Drink the Water is less a political play than a comedy of cultural errors. The Gaslight keeps the foibles of its characters suitably light, but still makes a point to remind us, gently, of the larger bungles for which America currently weathers a bad rap. This tactic pokes us with the present, but also enhances Allen’s nutty escapism: Next to the 2000 election and the mistakes of Yale’s biggest mistake, Bermuda shorts and a love of hamburgers look pretty good.

Megan Grumbling can be reached at mgrumbling@hotmail.com