An astonishing, loopy and very true World War II story about Great Britain tricking Germany into believing false invasion plans has been the source material for non-fiction books and movies dramas.
But this ludicrous 1943 espionage plot involving a corpse, fake papers and amazing good fortune also lends itself to absurdity. That’s the approach the Brit comedy collective SpitLip takes with “Operation Mincemeat,” the Olivier Award-winning, musical-comedy import from London.
Think of it as Monty Python on speed, and then throw in some Ealing Studio wit and a bit of “Beyond the Fringe” slyness. Too British? Not if you want to laugh uproariously — and perhaps even unexpectedly shed a tear or two.
Writing both script and music, SpitLip — David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts — began developing the show on London’s theatrical fringes before moving over six years to increasingly larger stages, eventually to the West End.
The original cast — Cumming, Hodgson, Roberts, Jak Malone and Claire-Marie Hall — now arrives on Broadway with a well-seasoned show full of pluck, luck and dazzle — and a kind of outrageous and improbable mission of its own.
The five-actor ensemble, under the nimble direction of Robert Hastie, takes a cuckoo — and a wee bit horrifying — premise and mines it for every gem of a laugh, be it big, small or shameless. Then the creators add an infectious and eclectic score that includes expositional rap (thank you, “Hamilton”), sea shanties, ballads, and even an electronic dance music number with K-Popping Nazis (thank you, Mel Brooks).
The preposterous plot begins with the band of brothers (and savvy sisters, too) in search of an unclaimed corpse, disguising it as a Royal Marine officer, and creating a fictional persona to make their ruse credible.
The trickier part is then tossing the corpse into the sea with the hope that the body — and the briefcase it carries with false invasion documents — will land among a nest of German spies on shore, then find its way to Hitler, who will divert his troops far from where the real Allied landing will take place. Simple, no?
No. But the complications with the clock ticking and the fate of the free world at stake are all part on the frenzied fun.
Of course there’s the occasional pondering of ethics, what with appropriating the corpse and all. “Is any of this legal?” asks the man who came up with the idea as daft as its code name. “Good question,” replies his senior officer. “The answer is, of course, never mind.”
At first “Operation Mincemeat” might evoke Patrick Barlow’s stage adaptation of “The 39 Steps,” another slapstick-y show with a handful of actors playing multiple characters at whiplash speed. But here the creators of “Mincemeat” manage something else that’s quite remarkable. Though the main characters are played for laughs, each one, amid all the comic chaos, also reveals their own dignity, heart, and humanity.
The show also manages to teeter between patriotism and subversiveness: admiring the derring-do of the mission while poking at its shortcomings, too. Having the actors play any gender of any character without camp or winks is a theatrical approach that not only cleverly skirts the sexist and classist ick of that era but coolly comments on it, too.
The five performers take on an endless stream of characters, but each is assigned a principle character that solidly ground the tale.
To come up with such a looney scheme one would have to be a bit of a nut, and as played by Cumming, Charles Cholmondeley is a hysterically loose-limbed, buggy, and marvelously comic creation.
Taking the lead with the plan is the character of Ewen Montagu, a swaggering, smug, and ever-entitled officer — “With your brains and my literally everything else…” — and played with captivating assurance and a sterling voice by Hodgson.
Having doubts about the whole screwball endeavor is intelligence director John Bevan, with Roberts playing a no-nonsense officer surrounded by absolute nonsense.
Supporting the officers are two unsung women from the secretarial pool: Long-serving, prim-and-proper secretary Hester Leggatt (Malone) and the young and unappreciated clerk Jean Leslie (Hall). Both bring a sweet wistfulness to the show with a song about those who might dream but are not destined to receive glory or even a thank-you-for-your service. But the show’s emotional highlight is all Malone’s, as Hester composes a heartbreaking, fake love letter that’s not a love letter (and yet it so very much is).
Included among dozens of other characters are a submarine commander and his crew, a creepy coroner, a sweaty spy, an American flyboy, and even the soon-to-be spy novelist Ian Fleming. (Yes, he was part of this intelligence mission, too.)
The second act becomes almost too much of a good thing, overstuffed with strange-but-true subplots, incidental characters and plenty of switcheroos. But by the end it all comes together as it builds for its glitzy finale, appropriately titled “A Glitzy Finale.”
Rightfully, the no-longer-anonymous man — Glyndwr Michael was his name — whose body was used in this incredible plot, is honored, too, in a touching reminder amid all the comic madness and theatrical joy.
