Thinking Cap’s Droll “Or,” Is 21st Century Restoration Comedy

If you have not seen one well-executed in a while, Thinking Cap Theatre’s production of Liz Duffy Adams’ Or, is a reminder of just how rollicking a Restoration comedy can be. Strangely, it’s even more so when it’s penned in 2009 and features decidedly 21st Century overtones about women’s independence from male domination and socially proscribed sexual expectations.

This delightful daffy farce underpinned with social commentary fits Thinking Cap’s eclectic bent for thought-provoking comedies and dramas that are aggressively off-beat (like its recent gender-bending The Importance of Being Earnest), have a literary bent (Vita and Virginia) or at a minimum are a step away from predictable mainstream fare (the examination of religion in the tent revival Church). Some productions land better than others, but you are always certain to see something you haven’t seen before.

For instance, in Or, you will witness the tall, broad-shouldered mustachioed actor Alex Alvarez quickly changing from a swaggering King Charles II to a paranoid masked conspirator William Scot to a female theatrical producer, the locomotive Lady Davenant (with Alvarez wearing a towering white wig bedecked with butterflies, but with his moustache still visible.)