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List Price: $10.95 | | Publisher: Hyperion
Salesrank: 144248
Released: November 20, 2002 |
| Our Price: $5.88 |
| Used Price: $1.06 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
heobald Maske has an unusual problem: his wife's underpants won't stay on. One Sunday morning they fall to her ankles right in the middle of town-a public scandal! Mortified, Theo swears to keep her at home until she can find some less unruly undies. Amid this chaos he's trying to rent a room in their flat. The prospective lodgers have some underlying surprises of their own. In The Underpants, Steve Martin brings his comic genius and sophisticated literary style to Carl Sternheim's classic 1910 farce. His hilarious new version was staged by Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, and opened in March '02 on Off-Broadway to critical acclaim.
Underpants, The Reviews:
An entertaining, quick read! 
2009-10-09 - Steve Martin is such a marvelous writer. This was such a quick & entertaining read. Lots of LOLs!
Fame is fleeting when there is a clothing malfunction... 
2009-05-10 - The Underpants is Steve Martin's interpretation of a play written by German playwright Carl Sternheim in the early 1900s.
Louise, stretching on her tiptoes to get a better view of the King, has her underpants drop to the floor. Her husband, Theo, is scandalized, but the story revolves around the other men who witnessed this event, who try hard to get Louise to provide a second performance in her own home.
This is a comedy piece, through and through, although there are hints of the times with anti-Semitism ("That's Cohen with a K"), disparate gender roles, and sexual repression. Given the publicity associated with "wardrobe malfunctions" today, the story reflects culture's continuing interest in those "brief peeks" (pun intended).
I think it would be a blast to see this play in production. I missed my chance during the 2002-03 season of the Manoa Valley Theatre. And now that I've read the screenplay, I can sense that it would have been a hoot.
The Underpants, published in 2002 by Hyperion, is an attractive and well-constructed book, and it will give you a good sense of what to expect in a performance.
The Underpants
2008-11-02 - I wanted this book for a class and received it within 3 days...speedy delivery! Hilarious adaptation of a older German play written by Carl Sternheim. I really enjoyed reading and acting out scenes from this show.
Best play I have ever read
2007-08-30 - If you're like me you stopped reading plays after high school or college english, and for good reason, they stunk. This remake by Steve Martin is well written and quite funny so buy it without fear, and perhaps put on a play for your friends and family. Well maybe not that, but if you were to choose a play for adults this would be it.
"Thank God your sluttishness has had no consequences."
2006-09-25 - While Louise Maske is waiting for the king to pass by in Dusseldorf, 1910, the fastener on her underpants releases, and they fall about her ankles in public. In a matter of seconds, she has grabbed them and hidden them, and she expects that few, if any, people have noticed. Her husband Theo, however, a government clerk, is furious and fears that he may be fired from his job for her gaffe.
Adapting Carl Sternheim's sociopolitical farce from 1910 into a wildly burlesque romp appealing to a modern audience, actor/writer Steve Martin drops Sternheim's dated political satire and stresses instead the absurdity of instant fame and the unexpected opportunities it presents to people such as Louise Maske. The result might be termed an "anti-bedroom" farce, since the various sexual pairings and recombinations of characters which develop during this play, some of them devoutly wished for, remain outside the bedroom.
The Maskes have an extra bedroom in their apartment, and they quickly find themselves almost overrun with candidates who want to rent it after Louise's "episode." Versati, a poet, sees Louise as his muse, and he is anxious to have an affair with her (and she, with him), but after she rents the room to him, she discovers that Theo has also rented it to the sickly Benjamin Cohen, a barber who is willing to walk a long distance to his job, just so he can be in the presence of Louise. The room is subdivided, with each person paying almost full rent. In subsequent action, Louise's friend Gertrude gives Louise sexual advice while she also creates a newer, more beautiful set of undergarments for Louise. Two new characters appear, and several new opportunities for liaisons arise.
The humor is bold and full of sexual innuendo as the verbal jousting takes place, Theo remaining ignorant of the intentions of the renters (and Louise), while engaging in attempts at extracurricular cavorting of his own. The many double entendres, the opportunities for the actors to wink at the audience and use humorous gestures, the talking at cross-purposes, and the use of metaphor by one character to speak suggestively to another while leaving a third person in the dark, all add to the humor of this ribald farce. As the characters attempt to obey their innermost urges, the motif of the Loch Ness monster appears and repeats--"All is calm on the surface, but watch out for what's underneath. That's where the danger lies. Under. Underpants." An amusing comedy with obvious humor. n Mary Whipple
