A Parisian bachelor, armed with only an airline flight schedule and a disapproving maid, successfully juggles simultaneous romances with three gorgeous flight attendants. It’s a setup for international disaster when an American buddy visits and endeavors to learn relationships from the master.
Marc Camoletti’s Boeing Boeing, directed by Justin Smith, is old school farce, hitting the rules of monogamous romances below the belt, but it’s a laugh worth enjoying even today.
Santa Rosa Junior College pulls experienced actors from their program to blend in with the fledgling students. Bernard, a demanding role played by Jay Soto, is a languid Lothario who makes promises he doesn’t intend to keep. Jake McFadden, as Bernard’s arriving buddy Robert, is a veteran of SRJC stage shows. He handles his role with amazing skill and flexibility, shifting from a Wisconsin dullard to a clever Romeo with ease. He is smitten with one of Bernard’s harem trio, the Lufthansa flight attendant Gretchen. Gretchen, masterfully commanded by Ally Liberty, isn’t buying his advances. She and Robert have the most amusing repartee in the show. Their dialog bounces between sensual and dismissive, an argumentative reckoning resolved only in the show’s final closure.
Robert observes Bernard’s techniques when Bernard first hustles TWA flight hostess Gloria out of the apartment, lest she miss her flight. Shay Rudy channels Bernard’s New York lover with an on-and-off accent and a charming lack of time. She’s barely out the door when Gabriella, a flight hostess from Alitalia Airlines, arrives with an energetical insistence of her devotion and an Italian accent, charmingly enacted by Victoria Cunha…