Mix three uniquely dysfunctional couples, two wildly hysterical dinner parties, and one enormous lie with clever dialogue and intricate staging and you have the recipe for a delightfully funny evening in the form of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy, How The Other Half Loves, now playing at the Westport Country Playhouse.

First performed in 1969, the show is a timeless analysis of the state of marriage as well as a study of the foibles of each of its couples’ individual characters. We witness what happens when two people attempt to cover up an affair by lying to their spouses about where they were on a particular evening. Unfortunately, the lie involves an innocent couple of unique characters as well, who are then invited to dinner by the lied-to spouses — and the fun begins.

L-R: Paxton Whitehead, Karen Walsh, Darren Pettie, Geneva Carr, Carson Elrod and Cecilia Hart. Photo by T. Charles Erickson

The play works on many levels, the most important being the ingenious set. Though one set, it encompasses two overlapping apartments, which allows events in different homes and on different evenings to happen simultaneously. It takes a minute or two to become comfortable with this staging, but once we realize that as the players weave and move through the space, we are actually seeing their separate homes and getting glimpses of their not so separate lives, it all makes perfect sense. This duality reflects the duplicity of the cheating spouses and also serves as a comedic device when the third couple is brought in. All of the characters are on stage in the highly entertaining depiction of two separate dinner parties, and watching the hapless innocents bounce between one dinner and the next is hysterical.

The characterizations and performances by the actors also add to the enjoyment of the evening. The three couples have unique dynamics of their own, and the actors brilliantly bring each character’s idiosyncrasies to life.

Frank and Fiona Foster are an older couple with a cool, distant, yet polite marriage in the very British upper crust sort of way. Played by Paxton Whitehead, Frank is the stereotypical bumbling, dunderheaded, forgetful, yet endearing partner to Fiona, who is delightfully played with exasperated impatience by Cecilia Hart.

Article Author: CindyC

Cindy's interests include books, music, charitable work, musical theater, the arts, Hugh Laurie, and House. She is now a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle.

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