Platte Valley’s solid production of Sandy Rustin’s farce is a naughty romp that struggles to deliver on its comedic premise.

There’s a lot going on in The Cottage, Sandy Rustin’s farce about a passel of cheating Brits. We open on Sylvia and Beau — our first pair of adulterers — in a cottage belonging to Beau’s mother. They meet once a year for their tryst, but this year is different for one big reason: Sylvia has decided she’s had enough of her marriage to Clarke (Beau’s brother, BTW) and is ready to dump him for Beau.

So begins a series of revelations and libidinous doings that culminate in a great many unwelcomed visitors to the cottage, a surprise or two and a whole lot of deplorable and dumbass behavior.

Director Kelly Van Oosbree has plenty to work with here, staring with Brian Mallgrave’s lavish set that transforms the Armory in Brighton into an authentic, ridiculously fussy English cottage. Costumes by Susan Rahmsdorff-Terry and wigs by Debbie Spaur add to the authentic feel of the production — as do the nicely tuned Brit-twit accents coached by Jeffrey Parker.

Sarah Kit Farrell is perfect as the confused and very horny Sylvia who’s made a few staggeringly stupid decisions unbeknownst to Beau (a supremely pompous Bill Diggle). In her zeal to begin her new life, she’s seen fit to inform Clarke (an even more pompous Cory Lowe) about her decisions, along with Beau’s very pregnant wife Marjorie (Jordann Zbylski).

Later, we’re introduced to two more batty characters: Beau’s other sidelight, Dierdre (Alex Jacobsen) and her gun-wielding, cuckolded husband, Richard (Adam Luhrs) — who also happens to be … oh, never mind.

Cory Lowe as Clarke and Sarah Kit Farrell as Sylvia.

Something’s missing

With all these pieces in place, there should be plenty to love about The Cottage. And while it indeed has its charms and a decent number of laughs along the way, Rustin’s script never quite gets to where it needs to be. It’s impossible not to compare it to some of those tight, older works from the likes of Noel Coward or even newer farces like those of Ken Ludwig. The whole thing must be a puzzle that somehow all fits together while continuously raising the stakes to ludicrous extremes.

With The Cottage, however, Rustin cuts the legs out of the whole thing when it’s revealed in the first act that no one’s all that upset about the acts of infidelity — for reasons I won’t reveal. With the wind taken out of the sails of outrage so soon, the play simply can’t live up to its promise as a wacky farce. We can see what it wants to be, but it just can’t ever land the comedic punches that a more well-crafted script would deliver. We’re left with the trappings of farce — the peripheral stuff that’s funny but that would normally be in service to the greater aim of the script.

Despite all that, there’s still plenty to like about this particular production as it’s so well done. There’s no shortage of pratfalls, awkward and comically revealing positions, ludicrous attempts to address the various arising situations and repeated calls for a cup of tea no matter what’s going on. The cast members are game for everything Van Oosbree throws at them to tease more mirth from the script, and I couldn’t help but hope to see them all again in something a bit stronger — Blithe Spirit, perhaps, or Moon Over Buffalo.