MACKEREL PLAZA

A comic novel is a great challenge for an actor. The performer must get the joke, but just barely. Nothing is more offensive than a reading in which the narrator is having so much fun that the listener feels left out. Raymond Todd does a superb job. Mackerel Plaza is a comedy of manners, P.G. Wodehouse in Connecticut. Andrew Mackerel (not Holy Mackerel, please!) is a clergyman, the sort who hates piety. He’s thrown into a rage by a sign reading “Jesus Saves.” Explaining his anger, he quotes Oscar Wilde: “While crime is not vulgar, vulgarity is a crime.” All of which might be all right for the Reverend Mackerel, since the zoning laws of Avalon, Connecticut, support him. Then he falls in love. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 01]