Review: "Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate" Shows Some Real Spunk

Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate

Written by James Sweeney and Matt Tanzosh

Directed and designed by James Sweeney, Matt Tanzosh, and Ben Fletcher

Presented by Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director, at Theater for the New City

155 First Ave., Manhattan, NYC

August 25-September 2, 2024

Ben Fletcher and Matt Tanzosh. Photo courtesy of the artists.
Classic British detective fiction, of the Arthur Conan Doyle/Michael Innes/Agatha Christie/Dorothy L. Sayers variety, popularized tropes that are still inescapably familiar today (think, for example, of the investigator climatically gathering everyone together in a drawing room to make a bit of a show of explaining their solution to the crime). Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate takes these tropes, supercharges them, gives them a hilariously NSFW twist, and then, for good measure, layers on a meta narrative as well. Excessive in all the best ways, Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate is currently part of the 2024 Dream Up Festival at Theater for the New City (TNC). The new works festival, in its twelfth iteration this year, runs from August 25th to September 15th and is dedicated to discovering new authors and challenging, non-traditional works and ideas. Helmed by the TNC's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price, this year's Dream Up Festival offers 16 plays, 12 of which are world premieres, one of which is an American premiere, and all of which can be seen for a ticket price of $15-$20 each.
James Sweeney and Ben Fletcher. Photo courtesy of the artists.
Our detective here, as the title suggests, is Lord Finnington Bus (Matt Tanzosh), whose surname is one letter off from his preferred word for ejaculation–but don't worry, the nature of the case which he is investigating and of his special skill (à la Sherlock Holmes' ability to distinguish among 140 types of tobacco ash or blind detective Max Carrados' heightened senses) means that plenty of other terms get their turn as well. The vicar (Ben Fletcher) in question has a small household whom Bus interviews one by one (or, in one case, doesn't, due to that character taking a little too much inspiration from the social attitudes of the play's sources). This detective narrative pastiche is wrapped in the conceit of an inexperienced troupe putting on their first show, an element extended to the play's opening frame and even its Playbill–or, rather, Playbust. The troupe's costumes are in some cases hysterically ill-fitting, wigs and hats still have the tags attached, there is a precariously–and perhaps needlessly–affixed moustache, and the vicar is dressed rather atypically for his position. Inexperience is not the only problem facing these actors, however: it comes to seem that James, responsible for a script that Matt and Ben increasingly question, might be a little, well, weird.
James Sweeney. Photo courtesy of the artists.
Lord Finnington Bus's monologues, reeled off in fabulous manner by Tanzosh, are a great source of comedy as well, veritable geysers of verbiage that act as an excellent send-up of period prose, similarly to how Bus's encounter with and backstory involving a police constable (James Sweeney) presents a comically exaggerated version of period character conventions. That scene also includes some sharp satire of policing itself, while the final reveal in Bus's case is both extremely funny and completely appropriate to the genre on which the Purloined Pelvis is drawing. Tanzosh and Fletcher toggle with aplomb between, respectively, the nearly silent vicar (whose lack of lines pays off in a great improv-related running joke) and the confrontationally self-confident Lord Finnington Bus and the actors Matt and Ben, who grow more and more discontented with how the show is going and the direction in which the script is taking them. Sweeney, meanwhile, is a comedic chameleon, personating not only the working-class-accented constable with an unexpected fetish but also the chambermaid, the butler, and a nephew whose mien is that of a young child crossed with a Bond villain.

Within the smartly anarchic genre spoof and behind-the-scenes insanity of Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate, Matt repeatedly worries that the play is ruining his ability to use the character of Lord Finnington Bus, which he created, in the future. A recurring joke, yes; but at the same time, we'd be perfectly happy to spend more time with Bus in his world–no joke.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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