The rich Fitch family lives in ostentatious opulence in their ivory tower estate in Palm Beach, but are they just birds in a gilded cage? For although they have every materialistic need satiated immediately by their army of servants, they don’t seem truly happy, and won’t be until the three siblings find true love. Sister Jessica, a 35-year-old spinster, is a bit more focused on leading the good life and taking over the family business to bother too much with love. Naïve brother Lance believes he’s finally found love in his beautiful Liz/Lise who claims to be a debutante, but who actually is a dancer from a nightclub in search of a better life while being chased by her boyfriend Max who loves her enough to follow her to Palm Beach where he becomes a servant in the Fitch household. And finally there’s the hilarious Victoria Fitch, the goofy, hypochondriac younger sister who finds herself wooed by genuinely devoted but dimwitted servant Jimmy. Victoria’s not really sure what to make of this surprising affection from a household servant, thus Jimmy heads off to make his fortune so he can be worthy of her.

If there’s a central core to the story, it’s really about the poor lovers Liz (Erica Piccininni) and Max (Clarke Thorell), and both talented stars make for likeable and amusing characters from their opening breakup to their Who, What, Where relationship that follows in the Fitch household, with a nice performance by Matt Cavenaugh as the good-looking but slow-on-the-uptake Lance Fitch completing the love triangle. Anastasia Barzee is deviously entertaining as the business-minded spinster Jessica Fitch who wants to spoil love in order to inherit the business. Heather Lee is the ditzy mother Eustacia with the gratingly nasal, upper class voice.

And then there’s Victoria, with Amanda Watkins turning in a truly Tony-worthy performance as the lovable poetess who is very sexy in that clutzy, nerdy, hypochondriac sort of way. Amanda’s personality, facial expressions, and body language are hysterically dead on throughout, and she helps make the most successful scenes of the show including To Serve You in which servant Jimmy (Noah Racey) expresses his devotion to her with a terrific song-and-dance routine in the family gymnasium that includes dancing with a barbell and half a barbell (choreography by Debbie Roshe). But the biggest showstopper is when Amanda Watkins and Erica Piccininni combine in the anti-love ballad A Bad Man is Easy to Find.

The excellent ensemble includes Chris Hoch, recently seen at the Playhouse in Private Fittings, seen here as the highly diverting Leo McKnight – the pool-playing friend of Lance who knows about Liz’s past. John Alban Coughlan as head servant Bixby who appears to have the hots for family matriarch Eustacia shines in his moment in the spotlight with his instruction on how To be a Proper a Servant. The other servants, led by Tessa 1 and Tessa 2 (Jennifer Evans and Taryn Darr) do a snappy, stylish job to the snappy, farcically fun musical score by David Gursky and Robert Cary, with the music performed by a four-person “orchestra” that includes two pianists playing facing each other in a unique setup that works well for this type of show.

Costume- and set-wise, Director Des McAnuff has put together a beautifully lavish production that emphasizes the overly swanky nature of the Fitch family to great effect, including having a movable spiral staircase on the golf course for the big Lise number in which Lance introduces his new fiancé in beauty pageantesque fashion – the same golf course where moments before Wilton (Ryan Hillard) readied himself to tee-off right into the audience.

Performs through July 17, 2005.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill