Lorenzo Pisoni (left) and Carson Elrod are botanist and savage, respectively, in this comedy. (
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‘The Explorers Club” is the rare comedy that fulfills its mandate: It wants to do nothing more than make you laugh — and that it does.
Nell Benjamin’s gleefully goofy new concoction, which opened last night at Manhattan Theatre Club II, doesn’t take a late-minute turn into pseudo-seriousness or deliver some kind of message. It’s simply funny.
Set in 1879 London, the play is nominally about the attempt of one Phyllida Spotte-Hume (Jennifer Westfeldt) to become the first woman admitted to the all-male Explorers Club. Phyllida has glowing credentials, having just discovered a mythical lost city and brought back a blue-painted warrior she nicknamed Luigi (Carson Elrod).
The crushed-out botanist Lucius Fretway (Lorenzo Pisoni) is ready to sponsor her, but other members aren’t so keen.
“Your science is adequate, but your sex is weak with sin and led astray with diverse lusts,” biblical scholar Sloane (the venerable John McMartin) tells Phyllida. “No offense.”
Westfeldt, the star/director of “Friends With Kids” and “Kissing Jessica Stein,” is just fine, if a bit stiffer than required, even for an upper-class Brit. But in the end, “The Explorers Club” isn’t really about her character.
Playwright Benjamin quickly drops her original setup — Phyllida is actually out of sight for big chunks of the play — to better focus on the Explorers themselves. And this crew of nitwits and timid eggheads has a way of running into trouble.
One of their problems is finding a decent bartender for their club house, which set designer Donyale Werle has packed with thick carpets, taxidermied beasties and exotic weapons.
Another is the animosity between herpetologist Cope (Brian Avers) and zoologist Walling (Steven Boyer) after the first’s cobra eats the second’s guinea pig.
And then there’s Luigi, who inadvertently touches off war between his tiny province and England.
Benjamin, who wrote the book for “Legally Blonde — The Musical,” is particularly good at satirizing idiocy and self-importance. The standout here is Harry Percy (the excellent David Furr), a dashing adventurer who claims to have discovered the elusive East Pole. Like many cocky idiots he’s a fountain of great lines, as when he explains that girls “get these little whims. That’s why we call them women.”
And there’s more than good quips here. Under Marc Bruni’s swift direction, the fast-paced production boasts superior feats of slapstick, executed with clockwork precision. As Luigi, the rubber-limbed Elrod literally slings drinks — and Pisoni turns out to be an ace catcher.
It’s enough to make you wish for a sequel about what happens to Phyllida after she joins the club that wouldn’t have her as a member.