Scoundrels steal the limelight

After performing as part of the Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning hit “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” UC Irvine alumna Jenifer Foote is happy to be back doing the same show in Orange County.

This week, she and the other cast members began their romp around the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s stage on the show’s national tour.

“It’s fantastic,” Foote said. “I was so excited to see in our itinerary we were playing both L.A. and Orange County.”

Under the direction of Jack O’Brien, the show, which is an adaptation of the 1988 movie starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, comes to Segerstrom Hall as part of the center’s 2006-2007 Broadway Series. Tony Award-winning actor Norbert Leo Butz reprises his role as Freddy Benson, a charming but crude con man who travels to the French Riviera looking for money and women.

Tom Hewitt plays Lawrence Jameson, a smooth-talking gentleman who swindles rich dames out of their cash by posing as a prince leading a phony revolution. He laments the ill-funded revolution in order to collect diamonds, jewels and checks made out to cash.

Because of the show’s popularity and Butz’s award-winning performance, the spotlight is often on the leading men, but it’s the women that create the opportunity for the scams.

“I think it’s really easy to focus on the two men in the show, obviously, but if it wasn’t for the women, there wouldn’t be a reason for them to be swindling each other,” Foote said. “They are their target, but what’s unique with these characters is they’re not just the obvious choices.”

The three leading ladies — the production has six main characters where the movie has three — only seemingly get taken by the scoundrels, even if they do get their hands on the cash.

“They [the women] basically come out on top,” said Hollis Resnik who plays Muriel Eubanks. “They are sort of the winners in the end, and, you know, I just love stories that have relationships and people talking to each other and have real true feelings about each other.”

Foote explodes onstage as Jolene Oaks, an oil heiress from Oklahoma who falls for Jameson’s princely act, but in a turn of events, tries to get him to marry her back in Oklahoma.

“She’s a blast to play,” Foote said. “She’s very fun, she’s just a ridiculous character.”

The unrefined Southern belle is foiled by Jameson and Benson, who come up with a scheme to turn her off. Benson slips into the roll of Ruprecht, the prince’s unsightly, ill-mannered brother. Ruprecht runs around stage, humping objects and people and generally creating a scene of chaos that drives Foote’s character offstage running.

“I don’t really have to do much but really watch those men being ridiculous and I can generally just act out of horror,” Foote said. “That scene is so much fun to do…. It’s really new and different every night because this show is about playing around.”

Resnik plays a philanthropic divorcee scammed out of her diamonds by Jameson. The character eventually realizes she’s been had, but counters by finding something more important than her wealth — love.

“I think that she got a bad deal with her marriage and she’s set off with her money to have adventure and flings or whatever, but she’s sort of on her last chance here. She’s vainly in search of true love and maybe it’ll never happen,” Resnik said. “She starts as part of the con … but things become more real.”

As an understudy for the part of Christine Colgate, America’s “soap queen,” in the original Broadway cast, Laura Marie Duncan is very familiar with the role on the national tour. Colgate creates a competitive streak between the two leading men as they start to fall for their mark worth $50,000. Although before the tour Duncan estimated she’d played the role 40 or 50 times, now she has made it her own.

“It’s an interesting thing for this role, I feel like I’ve been rehearsing it for two years, and in some ways when you’re an understudy and you move into a role, there’s a lot of pitfalls you can get stuck in,” she said. “As an understudy your job is to, as I always say, live within the choices someone else has made … otherwise you’ll throw the other people you’re on stage with.”

As a featured performer now, Duncan said her choices are hers and hers alone, but she feels lucky she’s had so much time to practice. The role, she said, has been vocally challenging, but a blast for the seasoned singer and actress.

The women attribute the show’s success to its creators, O’Brien, David Yazbek, who wrote the music and lyrics, and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Their blend of raucous comedy and an endearing story line can make fans of everyone, even those who aren’t traditionally excited about musical theater, the actresses said.

“This show appeals to a lot of husbands and boyfriends who are coming to the shows and are kind of dragged there and may not be keen on the idea of sitting through a musical,” Foote said. “But it’s just a funny, funny show that everyone can relate to.”

Some of Yazbek’s music in the show strays from traditional musical theater style and is more pop- and rock-influenced, which Duncan said she enjoys working with and thinks the audience enjoys listening to.

“Men like them [Yazbek musicals] a lot, which is really unusual … he has a really kind of guy-guy sensibility and I think men really respond to that, which is great,” Duncan said. “Also his experience in his other musical life, which is really contemporary and rock oriented translates really well to contemporary musical theater.”

The cast is enjoying their run at the center, especially the large backstage and dressing rooms.

“It’s like a wall of people [in the audience],” Duncan said. “It’s so interesting and you can feel it in hearing the response, which is great. I feel a little closer to the people here.”

The show runs through Sept. 10.