(Courtesy photo)  WILLIAMSTOWN -- In taking on the 1928 George
S. Kaufman & Morrie Ryskind/Bert Kalmar and Harrry Ruby musical,
"Animal Crackers," director Henry Wishcamper has reimagined this
Marx Brothers vehicle -- it was their last Broadway show before
they headed to Hollywood where they made a film version in 1930
-- as, essentially, a series of loosely connected vaudeville
sketches set against the background of a swank party in a swank
Long Island mansion where a much prized painting is about to be
unveiled, but not before it becomes the target of thieves.
Wishcamper sends the action spilling off the stage and into the
audience at Williamstown Theatre Festival's Main Stage, up and
down the aisles on the main floor and through the box seats on
the second and main kevels.  But for all the energy being
expended at Williamstown, it all feels more like a lot of
huffing and puffing rather than antic and madcap; deliberate and
effortful rather than the exuberant sharply timed rhythms of a
"Laugh-In" or "Monty