Theater farce now playing locally

    Tom Stoppard’s farce, The Real Mr. Hound, is being performed at Stage West through Saturday, March 23.

    The play revolves around two characters, Moon and Birdboot, theater critics for rival newspapers. They are to review a play set in a house called Muldoon Manor in Essex, England.

   During the play, Birdboot and Moon consider the actors and the plot, and form their reviews. As the play continues, however, they find that they are a part of the action.

   Tom Stoppard was born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia. The Real Inspector Hound, one of his older works, was produced in 1968. Some of his other works include Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993) and The Invention of Love (1997). He has also written or helped on screenplays for Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Russian House, Billy Bathgate and Shakespeare in Love.

   Directing the presentation of The Real Inspector Hound is Mark Waltz, Allied Theatre Group managing director, a fan of Stoppard.

   The cast includes two actors returning from a recent production of Putting It Together, Gary Taggart and Randy Clements. They are joined by Ashley Wood, who was Hamlet last summer; Debbie Dacus, who played Mikey in Cowgirls; Erin McGrann, who played Blanche in Brighton Beach Memoirs; and Lynn Mathis, who was last seen in King Lear.

   Jenae Yerger will make her Stage West debut, as well as TCU’s Matthew Moore. In charge of the set design is Lynn Lovett, and Jane Goodman is costume designer.

   The performances will be Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. Ticket prices are $18-$22.

   For tickets or information, call 817-784-9378.