'Room Service' stars Andy Belt as Harry Binion, Matthew Lindsay Payne as Gordon Miller (a role Groucho Marx made famous in the 1938 film) and Adrian Bagaric as Leo Davis. The comedy runs at Vagabond Players in Fells Point through Feb. 2. Photo by Shealyn Jae Photography

• Share

PRINT

Anthony Rufo plays Simon Jenkins, a character desperately clinging to decorum like a life preserver. Photo by Shealyn Jae Photography

It’s a trope we’ve seen in films and theater over the years, usually for comic effect: a hall or wall of doors that open and close as characters spring in and out, surprising, shocking, and saying all sorts of salacious and sappy things.

It’s used to slapsticky effect in John Murray and Allen Boretz’s farce Room Service, which debuted in New York in 1937 and returns in 2025 in all its sidesplitting silliness in the Vagabond Players’ production in downtown Baltimore.

The play opens on Broadway producerslash-con-man Gordon Miller (Matthew Lindsay Payne) in his Empire Hotel suite in New York City and stays there until curtain close.

Emerging from the multiple doors to the room are the remaining 12 actors of this talented ensemble cast, whose antics revolve around finding a backer for Gordon’s latest production, Godspeed, by fledgling playwright Leo Davis (Adrian Bagaric), and enough cash to keep his delinquent self and the entire show cast from being tossed from the hotel.

Laugh-out-loud comedy

It’s been said that in theater, dying is easy; comedy is hard. If that’s true, the cast of Room Service are among the hardest workers in Baltimore’s dramatic arts community today.

Actor Stephen Deininger had everyone roaring with laughter, almost as loudly as he rants with frustrated anger as the flustered hotel executive Gregory Wagner, who inadvertently becomes a backer for Godspeed. In comedy, timing is everything, and Deininger’s gestures, quick turns, pauses and verbal skills, even in delivering a simple expletive, made him an audience favorite.

Joining Wagner in his exasperation is hotel manager Joseph Gribble, whom Lucius Robinson plays masterfully, as he attempts to juggle Wagner’s irresistible force and Miller’s immovable object while trying not to have a nervous breakdown.

Not to be outdone is Payne’s Gordon Miller (played by Groucho Marx in the 1938 film adaptation), the indefatigable orchestra leader of this symphony of zaniness. Payne, who looks like the love child of actors Richard Benjamin and Alan Alda, is, like Groucho, bustling with unwarranted confidence. He pawns typewriters, hogties doctors, slips into a Polish miner’s accent while slurping spaghetti, and…well, best see the show for more details!

In the midst of this madcap maelstrom is Bagaric’s naïve playwright, Leo Davis, fresh from the nowhere of Oswego, New York. He’s tossed about the stage in ragdoll fashion, feigning measles, faking suicide, and falling in love with the big-hearted Hilda (Natasha “Tash” Hawkins). Bagaric does a fine job in achieving Leo’s character arc, from gullible bumpkin to Broadway-wise sophisticate, under the tutelage of Miller, Godspeed director and deer-head trophy lover Harry (Andy Belt), bad-idea machine Faker Englund (Adam Garrison) and others.

Talented supporting actors

The laughs are not reserved solely for those with the biggest roles. Mike Kranick’s Timothy Hogarth, the collection agency man heck-bent on retrieving the aforementioned typewriter, appears only for a few minutes but metamorphoses wonderfully from a polite professional to near-madman as Miller and his cohorts send him on a wild goose chase that leaves him looking as though struck by a tornado.

Similarly, Anthony Rufo plays the lone character who seems to have at least a pinky-toe hold to reality as the representative of a potential savior for Miller’s production. Watching him buffeted about the stage by the rest of the cast, desperately clinging to his decorum like a life preserver, was hilarious.

Will Christine Marlowe’s (Sydney Marks) mystery backer save Miller and the cast? Will Senator Blake (Samantha McEwen Deininger) save or scuttle the day? Will Dr. Glass (Nathan Rosen) escape his bonds? Will former Russian stage star Sasha Smirnoff’s (Tim Sayles) talents translate for an American audience? Will Hilda and Leo be betrothed or just bewildered? Will the $15,000 backer’s check bounce, clear or burst into flames? Who knows? It’s a farce!

Every actor in this wonderfully talented cast brought a level of energy and commitment to their role some might not expect in a non-Equity production.

Many a tossed bouquet to Room Service director Steve Goldklang, who somehow spins 13 wacky whirling dervishes into a well-choreographed comedic triumph.

Room Service continues its run at The Vagabond Players theatre at 806 S. Broadway in Baltimore City’s Fells Point district until Feb. 2. For tickets and more information, visit vagabondplayers.org or call (410) 563-9135.