by Robert W. McDowell

University Theatre at N.C. State’s TheatreFest 2005 opened May 26th with a rollicking rendition of The Butler Did It by Walter Marks and Peter Marks. This highly successful Off-Broadway comedy thriller, superbly staged for TheatreFest by director Terri L. Janney and assistant director Josh Parker, stars UT director of theater John C. McIlwee as down-on-his-luck producer/director/playwright Anthony J. Lefcourt. Lefcourt has high hopes that his latest whodunit, the-play-within-the-play The Butler Did It, will resuscitate his moribund career and result in a triumphant return to Broadway.

McIlwee, who doubles as the show’s costume designer (with Lisa Tireman), is a consummate comedian, with impeccable comic timing and a seemingly endless repertoire of funny facial expressions, mannerisms, and postures. He is also a master of the slow burn. McIlwee plays Tony Lefcourt as a fussbudget’s fussbudget. Lefcourt becomes increasingly desperate, because he has bankrolled The Butler Did It with his own money and simply cannot afford a flop, yet he cannot find the publicity “handle” that his press agent needs to give the show the notoriety it needs to do boffo box-office business.

In order to create the perfect whodunit — and a critic-proof comeback vehicle — Lefcourt plays mind games with his less than stellar cast of five has-beens and never-weres. For the five-character play-within-the-play The Butler Did It to hit on all cylinders, the audience has to believe that each of the four surviving characters had both motive and opportunity to murder the fifth.

For Walter Marks and Peter Marks’ comedy thriller to keep the ticketbuyers on the edge of their seats, the director and the five actors must all be equally suspect of plotting the premature demise of one of their number.

With John McIlwee doing yeoman’s work as producer/director/playwright-on-the-brink Tony Lefcourt, director Terri Janney deftly peels back layer after layer of this delicious comic onion, eliciting crisp comic characterizations from each member of the supporting cast.

With his right eyebrow arching melodramatically at just the right moments, Jim Sullivan is a hoot as former television star named Robert, who played a poor man’s version of Marcus Welby, M.D. years ago on the boob tube and now plays wealthy but depraved Raymond Butler in the play within the play. JoAnne Dickinson is a delight — an overendowed scene-stealer — as a superannuated ingénue named Natalie who plays Butler’s oversexed wife Angela with a deep but hilariously exaggerated ersatz moonlight-and-molasses-style Southern accent.

Meisha Gourley is silly and sweet and utterly charming as a fledgling actress name Claudia, whose role as Raymond Butler’s rebellious daughter Victoria is openly coveted by Natalie and whose amiable personality and youthful good looks prove irresistible to director Tony Lefcourt. Linh B. Schladweiler doubles as a tough Italian-American kid-turned-actor and inveterate ladies’ man named Michael, who plays Aldo, the Butlers’ butler-on-the-make, in the play within the play; and Robin Dorff provokes more bellylaughs with his pratfalls as a klutzy blacklisted actor named Sam, lately reduced to working as a waiter for his Aunt Florence’s catering business. Sam seizes the opportunity to play wacky mustachioed Detective Nigel Mumford, who unmasks the murderer in the final scene; but he has other, more powerful, secret motives for wanting to be in this cast: payback for the fellow cast member who got him blacklisted all those years ago.

Scenic designer Corky Pratt and set builder David Jensen have created a handsome rehearsal set — the living room of the Butler mansion — for the play within the play; costume designers John McIlwee and Lisa Tireman dress the show’s cast well and get a few extra laughs by outfitting Natalie in provocative outfits that show off her twin towers, and N.C. State students Stevan Dupor and Shane Roland make the most of their opportunity to serve as lighting designers for the first show of TheatreFest 2005.

With three decadent upper-crust characters named Butler and a real butler who doesn’t exactly act like a gentleman’s gentleman, The Butler Did It will keep the audience guessing — and guffawing — from the opening curtain until the final scene in which all is revealed. Don’t miss it!

University Theatre at N.C. State presents The Butler Did It Friday-Saturday, May 27-28, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, May 29, at 3 p.m.; Wednesday, June 1, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, June 4, at 8 p.m.; Wednesday, June 8, at 8 p.m.; and Friday, June 10, at 8 p.m. in NCSU’s Thompson Theatre, corner of Dunn Ave. and Jensen Dr., Raleigh, North Carolina. Individual tickets: $13 Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday and $15 Friday-Saturday ($6 N.C. State students and $11 Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday and $13 Friday-Saturday other students, seniors, and NCSU faculty and staff). 919/515-1100.