The Foreigner

The Foreigner is a comedic play by Larry Shue, first performed in New York in 1984. It follows the adventures of a boring and chronically shy Englishman named Charlie Baker during his three-day stay in a rural fishing lodge in Georgia. He is there with his friend S/Sgt. "Froggy" LaSueur, who is on official business with the American military, depressed over his nowhere job and his marriage to a wife who has been consistently unfaithful and is now terribly ill. He feels he cannot talk to people, so he pretends to be a foreigner who speaks no English, and in doing so inadvertently charms many of the locals, including the widowed owner of the lodge Betty Meeks, bitter ex-debuntante Catherine Simms, and Catherine's dim-witted younger brother Ellard. But things get complicated when Catherine's fiance David accidentally impregnates her, and the racist property inspector Owen threatens to condemn the property and turn it into headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan. Long story short, Hilarity Ensues.

Not to be confused with the Steven Seagal film.

This play contains examples of:

 * Becoming the Mask: Charlie and his "foreign man" persona
 * Big Bad: Owen.
 * Bond One Liner: Froggy gets an awesome one after : "Bloody foreign cars, can't trust 'em".
 * Cool Old Lady: Betty.
 * Corrupt Hick: Owen Musser, in spades.
 * The Dragon: David.
 * Fake Nationality: A rare in-play example.
 * Five Man Band:
 * The Hero would be Charlie, though he's mostly of the reluctant variety.
 * The Lancer is Froggy.
 * The Big Guy is Ellard.
 * The Chick: Catherine.
 * Genius Ditz: What everyone thinks Ellard is when he starts "teaching" Charlie how to speak English.
 * The Ghost: Charlie's wife Mary, and Betty's late husband.
 * Little Red Riding Hood: When prompted to tell a story in his native language, Charlie tells this, with the help of ridiculous hand gestures.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Charlie, though it's not so much stupidity as naivety.
 * True Companions: What the heroes have become at the end of the show.
 * Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Partly invoked in Act Four; it is acknowledged on-stage, but what the plan itself is we don't find out until the bad guys do.