Beth Anne Cox is directing The Center Street Community Theatre’s production of Larry Shue’s “The Foreigner,” but it’s not the first time she’s been in the director’s chair for the play. “I directed this in 1987 when I lived in Michigan, when it was new. The social and economic climate is still as relevant now as it was then,” Cox said in an interview during rehearsals Tuesday night. Shue wrote the play in the early 1980s. He only wrote a few plays before an untimely death, Beth said. Her husband, Gerald Cox, is playing the lead role of Charlie Baker for the The Center Street Community Theatre production. Back in 1987, he played the role of Charlie’s friend, Froggy LeSeur. “We did this show 25 years ago and I played Froggy when my wife and I did it in Cadillac, Michigan,” he said. Beth said Gerald got her started in theater work when they started dating. “The Foreigner” will be on the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts stage Friday and Saturday and then again March 4 and 5. A comedy improv group will perform at 7 p.m. each night, with the play starting at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 and are available at the box office or online. Taking place in a lodge in Georgia, the plot centers around the visit of Charlie Baker and Staff Sgt. Froggy LeSeuer, both Englishmen. Charlie is depressed because his wife is ill and she’s cheated on him a number of times. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone, so Froggy concocts a story for him that he’s a foreigner who speaks no English. The lodge owner, Betty Meeks, is delighted to have an exotic person staying at her place so she caters to his every need. At first, Charlie is taken back by Froggy’s plan, but falls into it and ends up enjoying the misrepresentation. Other characters in the show help move it along. Beth said, “I love the idea that he came here to get away, but they’re so sweet they try to teach him English. He’s so nice, he plays along.” The Rev. David Marshall Lee, Ellard Simms and Catherine Simms are also regular guests at the lodge. Owen Musser is a local with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and who is trying to help Lee take Meeks’ home away from her. Catherine is pregnant, though not yet married to Lee, and her brother Ellard is seen by others as a simpleton. There’s also a trust fund Catherine could give to Ellard if she deems him smart enough to handle it. But Lee tries hard to make Ellard seem more simple-minded than he is. Lee has a plan with that money so he doesn’t want Catherine to give it to Ellard, which is one reason he decides to hurry up his marriage to Catherine. “The play at first seems like just a broad comedy, but there are little elements that draw you into it more and more,” Beth said. The story takes place in Tighlman, Ga. While the original play doesn’t say what year it takes place, Beth said there’s a line that references the late Princess Diana having her first child. Beth said they brought the play up to date a bit by saying Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was having her first child. Beth said people will enjoy the show because of the cast. “This cast nailed their characters by the second read-through,” she said. “I’ve never worked with a cast so well before. I’ve been in euphoria with them. I think the audience will really enjoy it because of that.” Gerald said the hardest part for him in the play is trying not to react to everyone. His character is pretending not to be able to speak or understand English, so he’s got to act like he doesn’t. “It’s hard to keep a straight face,” he said. Playing the racist Owen Musser is Greg Teghtmeyer. “He’s a dumb redneck. He’s incredibly superstitious and racist. He’s the kind of guy you love to hate,” Teghtmeyer stated. In scenes where Musser makes things uncomfortable for the audience, Shue wrote the play in such a way that it’s diffused, Teghtmeyer explained. “The (KKK) could have been offensive, but the writer does a good job of making (Musser) look silly,” Teghtmeyer said. “(The show) has an ebb and flow to it like a piece of music.” Eddie Van Hartman plays the Rev. Lee. He said he’s never done “The Foreigner” before, and his theatrical experience is limited to high school, college and the theater’s past production of “M.A.S.H.” “It’s been a very incredible and amazing and growing experience,” Van Hartman said of working on “The Foreigner.” “The cast is spectacular. I’m learning from everyone.” Totheroh also is enjoying his role. “It really is fun because I think of Ellard more as an excitable child than a dumb person really,” he said. The other characters put Ellard down because they think he’s dumb and that causes Ellard to not have any confidence, Totheroh said. But when Charlie comes around and starts responding to Ellard, that helps Ellard grow. Totheroh said he’s not done a lot of theater. He did improv and a play at Grace College, then was in “M.A.S.H.” The improv has helped him with his acting, he said.
