Twits in Spats

By Stefan Kanfer

JEEVES TAKES CHARGE

by P.G. Wodehouse

Adapted by Edward Duke

A thing people forget about P.G. Wodehouses' novels, noted George Orwell, is how long ago they were written. That was in 1945. Today they appear to have been composed somewhere between the Jurassic era and the Iron Age. The plummy clubmen, the young wastrels in spats and waistcoat, the shockable aunts, the frosty butler belong in a diorama at the Museum of Natural History, not onstage. Yet here they are, spouting the ancient lines: "He looks as if he'd been poured into his suit and forgotten to say when." "From the collar upward he stands alone." The japes about class and custom once seemed spun of gossamer; now they appear to be composed of cobwebs. As for the champagne merriment, it seems to have been uncorked since 1915.

The remarkable aspect of this archaeological reconstruction is not that Wodehouse lives; he is far more robust between cloth covers than in the theater, where he is bereft of narrative and description. The evening demonstrates only one astonishment. Edward Duke, the entire cast of Jeeves Takes Charge, is a festival of upper-class twits, from the harrumphing members of The Drones, young Bertie Wooster's club, to the nattering dames, to the one true aristocrat of Wodehouse's canon: the immortal, if tiresome Jeeves.

Duke recently won a British award for Most Promising New Actor. At 29, the boy seems a bit long in the tooth for rookie of the year; in the best Wodehouse tradition, one wishes him finer fortune in sturdier stuff. Carry on, Duke. -- By Stefan Kanfer This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.