The Cast Photo by Dave Lepori

First conceived by the German playwright Carl Sternheim in 1910 as the farce Die Hose, the above set-up cries for a current-day master of comic silliness eager to be a bit naughty–someone like Steve Martin–to update the pithy puns and the erotically suggestive innuendos while retaining the time and place of the original play. In 2002, the creator of the light-hearted and popular Picasso at the Lapin Agile sent his adaptation, The Underpants, to an Off-Broadway premiere, generating many productions coast-to-coast ever since. With a cast of locally beloved comic stars, San Jose Stage Company is opening its own uproarious version of Steve Martin's The Underpants under the tongue-in-cheek, quick-witted direction of Kimberly Mohne Hill.

While taking himself very seriously, Will Springhorn Jr.'s Theo Maske is quite the joke to everyone around him as he stomps through the small apartment making pronouncements and demands in a voice loud enough to be heard a block away. Theo is quick to show his thick thigh and arm muscles to anyone who happens to be near and even quicker to point out to his wife where there is too much dust and too many dirty dishes. He hates the unexplainable and is concerned about things like a newspaper report of a monster in Loch Ness. He is a man who prides himself on never reading a book and of being bound by his duty to keep his head down at work and to "blend in." And until he can save a sum of 600, he is determined there will not be a baby added to the household and, therefore, nothing will be happening in the bedroom with his wife that might produce one.

For her part, Louise patiently rolls her eyes, politely disputes some of her husband's accusations of her messiness, and tries her best to minimize the two seconds her bottom saw sunlight. But it does not take her long to get quite excited and even wide-eyed aroused as Gertrude suggests making her new, soft and sexy underpants that should result in her legs spreading apart in bed with a man's lustful body over her. Who that man might be–her husband or a boarder–becomes the question of the day as Lyndsy Kail employs scores of wonderfully funny expressions and suggestive body poses as Louise primes herself for a much-desired bedroom encounter.

If not her husband, two new boarders who are soon going to share the same room (with a plywood divider) are standing in line to be Louise's lover. First arriving is a foppish poet–announcing he is "proudly unpublished"–whose love of similes and metaphors rivals his elaborately professed love for the woman he saw only hours prior at the king's parade. Nich Mandracchia is a riot as the elegantly donned Frank Versati who becomes so enthralled meeting Louise in person that he must cover his crotch with his top hat, explaining, "My veins are stiff with certainty." Full of flowery, bombastic phrase and often on bended knee in plea for a romp between the sheets, Frank fires up both his and Louise's juices, but the payoff keeps somehow getting curiously delayed.

Part of the reason for that delay is the appearance of a second renter/wooer who is bound to thwart any plans Frank has for bedding Louise. Keith Pinto's reputation as one of the Bay Area's top comedic actors certainly will only now soar higher, given his hilarious depiction of a somewhat shy, hypochondriac Benjamin Cohen, a barber who just happens to know that Frank's hair has been dyed twice. From subtle looks and glances to outright acts of clowning, Pinto is a hoot to watch, as the wimpy but determined Cohen too avows his full devotion to Louise whom he also caught a quick but lasting glimpse of that very morning. A lover of Wagner, Cohen may not write poems like Versati, but he can turn on operatic drama in his thrusts for lust.

However, as Benjamin Cohen presses his suit with the wife, he continually assures her unsuspecting husband not of those intentions but of his religion that his name is spelled with a "K" and not a "C," and yes he slipped and said "kosher," but the one spelled with a "C" not a "K." Into the all the farce, Martin slips in more than just a hint or two that the buffoonish Theo is showing all the signs of being the seedling of a future Nazi loyalist.

In the apartment above, the spinster Gertrude–herself quite sexy in a forty-something kind of way–does not miss a word what is going on below. After all, "I was cleaning my floor, and you know how when you're scrubbing you put your ear on the floor for leverage?" Who could better embody this busy-body than the fabulously funny Judith Miller, her Gertrude shaking in titillated excitement that "I am going to have an affair"–meaning through the affair she plans to be sure poor, love-lacking Louise has. As her tutoring and sewing of soft undies begins to pay off, she gleefully declares to Louise, "Lies, deceptions, trickery–my little girl has grown up."

As the passions heat up on all sides–including a sudden smack of hysterical horniness by Theo for his own venture into illicit love–into the scene enters yet one more wanna-be boarder: a prudish, demanding, elderly man with rigidly conservative views and no smiles. Garland Lee Thompson Jr. is perfectly dour as a bent-over, grumpy scientist who provides Martin a playground to satirize lacking any desire of love (and certainly of love-making) in one's life.

Modest life in the early twentieth century of Germany comes to fruition via Heather Kenyon's simple but effective scenic design of the Maske apartment (including several obligatory doors that slam on cue for another audience chuckle). Lauren Suiter's costume designs have jocularity stitched into each character-defining outfit. Jenn Trampenau's properties ranging from grilled sausages to hot rolls from the oven, Maurice Vercoutere's spot-on lighting choices, and Steve Schoenbeck sound design, including period music with German lyrics, round out the excellent creative team efforts.

While Steve Martin's The Underpants is mostly a riotous romp of slightly dirty double entendres and silly situations of misplaced love, there is also an ongoing commentary of the budding fascism already present in 1910 Germany and a timely reminder how a small event can be quickly blown out of proportion. But in the end, San Jose Stage Company's The Underpants is mostly a great excuse to escape the otherwise bleak current events and have a chance just to enjoy a rib-tickling ninety minutes of escape.

The Underpants runs through April 27, 2025, at San Jose Stage Company, 490 South 1st Street, San Jose CA. For tickets and information, please visit www.thestage.org or call 408-283-7142.