Noah Sheola returns to the Ring with a new comedic pairing in “Scent and Sentimentality”

Local playwright Noah Sheola sees plots through two sets of eyes. With “Lose Some, Win Some,” it was Woody Allen and ’80s game shows; with “The Grotesque History of Marie Antoinette,” it was comic caricature coupled with tragic historic heroine; and with “Scent and Sentimentality,” his most recent offering, now at the Players’ Ring in Portsmouth, Sheola has combined the melodrama and soap opera.
At the start of the play, we find maid Maude (Carolyne Gall) and butler Alan (Joseph Joel Bodnar the Third) performing their respective duties at what looks like a fine Victorian mansion. But the stuffed Godzilla doll in the corner lets us know that something is amiss. The time is the present—it’s just that the master of the house, Nigel Fullstop (Kevin Baringer), prefers to live his life as though in Victorian England. The Godzilla doll is to be a present for Maude’s 5-year-old son, who’s been given the why-didn’t-my-parents-like-me name of Hubert.

The master is desperately trying to again find his lost love, Delores, and will employ any means he can find to either get over her, get her back, or find love anew. This eventually brings him to the realization he needs to look at what’s under his nose a little more carefully before sniffing so far afield. But first, his quest engages him in dealings with some hilarious and shady characters. The three love/sex peddlers are poet Lord Gaylord Gay (Andy Fling), sadomasochistic Herr Schertz (Gary Locke) and parfum artisan Maxine de Coeur (Nickie Sugana Fuller). Fling, Locke and Fuller don’t just steal the show—they grab it, stretch it out, stamp their initials on it, and make it totally their own. Every moment these three are onstage is so full of hilarity that audience members are literally holding their stomachs and/or have tears streaming down their faces. Yes, when you’ve put an audience member in physical agony, you know you’ve achieved the heights of comedy, and these three beat the hell out of all of us (I’m waiting for “S&S II: The Sex Peddlers Unite”).

Baringer, as the main character, got off to a slow start but soon found his understated comic stride as the desperate, hapless pseudo-time traveler. He’s rough in places, but I liked his rawness; it sold me on the idea he was a fish out of water trying to grow lungs.

Joseph Joel Bodnar the Third is another find for the stages of the Seacoast. He’s clearly not as experienced as some of the other actors, but he catches on fast, and once he found his rhythm, he was off and running. Carolyne Gall never really hit a comfortable pace; she seemed uncomfortable both as the Victorian maid and as her modern-day self. Her diction was a little rough, and her character seemed a little lost among the rich and colorful folks all around her. Her sense of comedy is right on, though, so with a little practice, she’ll hit her mark.

Doing double duty as playwright/director, Noah Sheola gives us what he always gives us: something we could not possibly have expected, full of hilarity and interesting ideas. It’s a niche he shares with no one.


Scent and Sentimentality
at the Players’ Ring through Nov. 27.
Shows are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., though there will be no performance on Thursday, Nov. 24. There also will be a matinee on Sunday, Nov. 27 at 3 p.m.
Tickets are $10 general admission and $8 for students and seniors.
The Players’ Ring is at 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth, 603-436-8123.