Monty Navarro, as actor Kevin Massey describes him, is a very complicated man.
When we meet Monty, he is downtrodden, juggling a mistress and a fiancée, and with next to no prospects for prosperity or advancement in his own life.
That’s until he finds out from Miss Shingle he’s a very, very distant relative of a royal family and could become an earl – if only a lot of people ahead of him in line were dead. Which is when Monty decides to clear his path, employing a variety of methods to dispatch his other relatives.
Winner of four Tony awards, including the one for Best Musical, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, the two-act musical comedy now on national tour, is headed for the Hobby Center, courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars.
“Even though he’s a killer, you end up rooting for him because these people are awful people,” Massey says. One of the first songs is “I Don’t Understand the Poor,” sung by another character much closer to the earldom.
One of the biggest songs and scenes is “I’ve Decided to Marry You,” when, in classic farce form, both of Monty’s loves come to visit him at the same time and take turns going in and out of two doors, just, of course, missing each other. “The way it’s staged, it brings down the house every single night,” Massey says.
Performances are scheduled for May 5-15 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Sundays, Tuesday and Wednesday; 8 p.m. Wednesday May 4; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For information, call 713-558-8887 or visit tuts.com. $45.75-$138.50.
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2016.
