The Fox on the Fairway by Ken Ludwig (2010)

TW: Crude Humor

SYNOPSIS

 Justin has just been hired by Quail Valley’s country club where his girlfriend works and decides it’s the perfect time to propose and Louise is ecstatic to receive Justin’s grandmother’s ring. The true plot of the play begins with Bingham and Dickie getting ready to finalize the rosters for this year’s “friendly” golf competition between the rival clubs. Dickie talks Bingham into a betting his wife’s beloved antique shop along with $200,000 while Bingham thinks he has a sure thing only to reveal that Quail Valley’s star golfer left to join Dickie’s Crouching Squirrel that morning before Bingham could realize the betrayal. Just when it seems Bingham has lost before the competition has begun, Pamela, a board member, sees Justin hitting perfect ball after perfect ball and they fix the books to have Justin represent Quail Valley in the competition. Scene Two begins with a rain delay where Justin has a 12-point lead and it’s revealed that if anything upsets him, he’ll throw the game out of misery. Of course, this insight comes from Louise just after she’s lost his grandmother’s ring down the toilet and Justin finds out only a few minutes later. He goes from being upset to forgiving Louise, but makes a small joke at her expense that she takes personally and calls off the engagement believing he doesn’t trust her. Enter, Muriel, Bingham’s wife that’s only now finding out her shop is being used as collateral. He’s able to march a despondent Justin to the green, but he breaks away just in time to hit the ball into the lake. Bingham and Pamela conspire to get Justin and Louise back together and rekindle a bit of their high school romance along the way. Nothing they do works, but Louise and Justin find their way back to each other anyway and in excitement Justin uses a gold club to hit a cardboard box, not realizing it contains Muriel’s expensive and very dense antique vase. Justin’s arm is broken and at their wit’s end Pamela and Bingham turn to Louise as a joke only to find out she quit playing golf because she kept beating Justin. She’s about to play when Dickie brings up the rules and unless Louise is kin to an existing club member, she would have to endure the year long waiting period. The foreshadowing has been grown throughout the play that Louise is adopted and Pamela has a familial birthmark in the shape of a purple flower, which of course Louise also has. Turns out Dickie got Pamela pregnant when they were in high school. Just as we think Louise is going to save the day, a heavily medicated Justin returns to fulfill his duty. He’s found the ring and struggles with Louise to take the club so he can finish the game only for the ball to be hit on accident and win the game anyway.

CHARACTERS

Justin – 25, Offbeat, Bundle of Nerves with Unruly Hair, Sweet, Anxious

Louise – 23, Knockout, Leggy, Good Natured, Little Ditzy

Bingham – Mid 40s

Pamela – 39, Beautiful, Tanned, Very Sophisticated

Dickie – Mid 40s

Muriel – Sturdy Woman

POSSIBLE MONOLOGUES

 Louise has a lot of pseudo monologues. Her first where she explains why she makes flowery monologues about what happens would probably make the most sense out of context, but it still loses a lot of what makes it funny. Her closing monologue is more of the flowery language, but I personally don’t think it holds much meaning outside the play.

 Bingham’s first monologue is also hilarious, but I don’t know how well to would hold. He’s explaining how the tournament starts and who Dickie Bell is and really laying it on thick about how much he detests the guy, just as Dickie walks in and Bingham quickly switches to a pleasant greeting. He’s got another where he’s threatening Bingham to play well in the tournament, but the better monologue is later when he’s trying to get Justin to focus and relates golf to religion.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

 I played Louise in a community theatre production in 2014 and still have fond memories of the play. It’s a hilarious show to watch and be a part of as any farce should be and was specifically written to honor the English farce traditions that surfaced in the 1880s. If bawdy jokes and sexual innuendos aren’t your cup of tea, this is not the play for you. There are few jokes that aged poorly – one about having hearing like a Cherokee Indian and one about drunk Irishmen, but otherwise it hold up well considering the play is only a decade old.

In fact, producing this play now might be rather topical with arguments in the sports world about which women can compete in which sports competitions. Louise doesn’t volunteer to golf for Quail Valley because she thinks it’s a men’s tournament when it’s actually mixed. Bingham explains that women are allowed to play, but tend to not be able to score as well. The point is mute though because Louise never makes a clean stroke, but my take is that the argument about women’s sports should be to let women play. If they’re worried about unfair advantages there are better ways to provide equity to the players than excluding and invalidating trans women and cis women with high testosterone levels.