'Caught in the Net' opens at Brown County Playhouse

The Brown County Playhouse will begin its latest production Thursday with "Caught in the Net," a hilarious British farce by Ray Cooney, which is the sequel to Brown County's 1990 production "Run for Your Wife" by the same playwright.\nThe play centers on London cabby John Smith and his off-the-wall attempts to keep his double life a secret. His two children from two different wives meet over the Internet and find that their fathers are strikingly similar. This prompts them to want to meet in person and consequently throws John's life into slapstick chaos.\nThe British accents used in "Caught in the Net" are credited to senior John DeBoer, the voice and diction coach.\n"It's a very funny play and it moves at a breakneck pace," DeBoer said.\nFor this reason, he made sure the audience could pick up on where the play was set by listening to the accents, but at the same time be able to understand what was being said.\nDeBoer said he created the accent for the show by mixing some common English accents together.\n"It's a more colorful style of British than you would normally hear on stage," he said.\nDeBoer also mentioned that doing research into the dialects for the show was a lot of work because "Caught in the Net" takes place in two very specific neighborhoods of London -- Wimbledon and Streatham. DeBoer was first introduced to voice, diction and dialects through the IU Department of Speech and Hearing Department and also by taking various voice and speech classes.\nDirector Lynne Perkins is a seasoned veteran of the theater with many directing credits under her belt, including "The Good Doctor" in 2002 and "Love Letters" in 2003.\nPerkins said she is impressed with Cooney's ability to write farces.\n"He's a farce writer by nature," she said. "He's incredible at it."\nPerkins said her favorite part of directing "Caught in the Net" was seeing everything come together.\n"It could be a bunch of shtick just flung together, but there's a rhythm to a farce," Perkins said.\nGraduate student Scot Purkeypile returns to the Brown County Playhouse stage in the role of Stanley having recently completed his role of Froggy in "The Foreigner."\nPurkeypile said "Caught in the Net" is dynamic because of all the action that takes place onstage.\n"It's one of those shows that has a bunch of doors so there's a lot of coming and going," he said.\nPurkeypile said he enjoys playing the part of Stanley because of the constant slapstick action associated with the character.\n"Once I hit the stage, it never stops," he said. \n-- Contact staff writer Christopher Gagnon at cjgagnon@indiana.edu.