Slamming Doors

Unnecessary Farce is set in two adjoining motel rooms, and there’s a reason that the set for the Idaho Rep production has eight doors: They’re all going to slam. Possibly all at the same time.
After the opening exposition scene, says artistic director Dean Panttaja, Paul Slade Smith’s comedy is “a nonstop ruckus.” Two cops are staking out the mayor’s secret meeting with an accountant: Is embezzlement in the works? Problem is, one of the cops is sleeping with the accountant, and the other has no clue how to work the videotape machine. The plot thickens — and the door-slamming accelerates — with the addition of the mayor’s wife, a gumshoe detective who’s nowhere near as hardboiled as he’d like to think, and a mysterious hitman wearing kilts and playing bagpipes. “Just when you think you know what will happen, or how a character will act or react,” says Panttaja, “it all gets turned topsy-turvy.”

Idaho Repertory Theater presents Unnecessary Farce • July 1-2, 10, 16, 19, 28 and Aug. 6, at 7:30 pm • Tickets: $18; $16, seniors; $13, youth • UI, Hartung Theater, Sixth St. and Stadium Dr., Moscow, Idaho (quarter-mile west of the Kibbie Dome) • Visit: www.idahorep.org • Call: (208) 885-7212 • Four other plays continue in Moscow through Aug. 3: CHAPS, Some Enchanted Evening, Romeo and Juliet and High School Musical