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September 28 - November 10, 2007
I Do! I Do!
Reviewed by
Brad Hathaway |
Running time 2:35 - one
intermission
A two-person musical about the ups and downs of a marriage
Click here to buy the CD |
Charm. The charm of the two performers in Broadway's first (and only)
two-person musical is the secret of success. It is what The Fourposter
had, the play on
which this musical is based, when Hume Cronyn and
Jessica Tandy's palpable affection for each other made the story of a
marriage marvelous. (It won the 1951 Tony Award for best play). The
charm of none other than Robert Preston and Mary Martin, as the couple who
navigate the perils and pitfalls of partnership over half a century of
marriage, is what made the original production of the musical a success in
1966. It is what Heather Mayes and, most particularly, Ryan Clardy bring to
this revival in an effort to get the piece past the problems of changing
contemporary attitudes toward the proper relationship between men and women.
It also has a sentimental core and a tuneful score. What it doesn't have is
the sensibility of modern attitudes toward the marriage partnership. It is a
stumbling block that charm can only partially obscure, and director Lucinda
Merry-Browne's decision to up-date the action hardly helps.
Storyline: A marriage goes from wedding to wedding night and from first
fight to first pregnancy. Through parenting, the crisis of an extramarital
affair, the marriage of the children and the challenges of advancing years,
love provides the bond that keeps the couple together.
In both the original play and the original
musical, the action spanned the half-century from the late 1800s to the mid
1900s. That period, of course, pre-dated the "women's lib" movement and the
adoption of the widely held suspicion that most if not all men are, at
heart, "male chauvinist pigs." The concept that the woman in this marriage
not only would stay at home to raise children and see to the comforts of her
spouse, but that there wouldn't even be any consideration of other options
for her, seemed somehow more believable in an age long past. Merry-Browne,
who stages the entire show with a fine sense of pace and style, doesn't help
either her cast or her audience by moving the time period to the 1940s
through the 1990s. It seems less likely, for instance, that two virgins on
their wedding night might hop into bed and wish each other pleasant dreams
("I hope you sleep well" / "I hope so too") in the more presumably
enlightened age at the end of World War II than in the Victorian era of an
earlier century. The way this couple seems oblivious to the changing
expectations of women through their middle-age is an even greater stretch.
But much of theater, especially light and lovely
musical romantic theater, is based on a willingness of the audience to
suspend disbelief for two and a half hours in order to enjoy something
tuneful, sentimental and, yes, charming. This, they get in the songs of
Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones (The Fantastics, 110 In The Shade)
and the performances of Clardy and Mayes who are both New York-based
performers new to the Bay Theatre. Clardy has the highest hurdles to clear
and does the best job of it, giving an appealing performance that nearly
justifies both the love of his wife and the affection of the audience.
He also brings a deeply resonant voice to the songs which, combined with his
clarity of enunciation, makes it easy to get the most out of Jones' fine
lyrics. Mayes is in fine voice too, for most of the songs and their duets
are delivered with spirit, which is a good thing since almost all of the
twenty songs have at least a portion sung as a duet.
The tight space of the Bay's current home in the
basement of the West Garret building may present fewer difficulties for this
two-person, one-set musical than for a large cast, multiple location musical
extravaganza, but it still throws a curve or two even for this show. The
choreography is about as effective as it can be given that the space
available for dancing is only about fifteen feet wide and half that distance
deep. With such a low ceiling and no space on the sides, the lights are so
close to the performers that anything other than a general wash of light
results in shadow spots that distract whenever a performer moves a foot one
way or anther. Part of the playing space is given over to the three-member
combo of piano, drum and bass. Angela Linhardt's piano playing is crisp and
clear if just a bit mechanical, but the accompanying bass softens it at key
moments.
Music by Harvey Schmidt. Book and lyrics by
Tom Jones based on the play The Fourposter by Jan de Hartog. Directed by
Lucinda Merry-Browne. Choreographed by Janet Luby, Heather Mayes and Ryan
Clardy. Musical direction by Anita O'Connor. Design: Lauren Brauninger
(costumes) JoAnn Gidos (properties) Dottie Meggars (lights)
Scott Suchman (photography) Tupper Stevens (stage manager). Cast: Ryan
Clardy, Heather Mayes. Musicians: Fred Geil or Diego Solano, Angela Linhardt,
William McHenry. |
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April 27 - June 2, 2007
The Norman
Conquests: Table Manners
Reviewed by
Brad Hathaway |
Running time 2:20 - one intermission
A British comedy - one of a trilogy
Click here to buy the script |
George Bernard Shaw was supposed to have said that "England and America are
two countries separated by the same language." They certainly are separated
by their senses of humor. What seems to amuse the British audiences in
London can seem flat on this side of the Atlantic, while the humor of some of
what passes for entertainment in America escapes English audiences. There is
a trick to staging a contemporary English comedy that seems to have escaped
the talented and energetic troupe performing the first of Alan Ayckbourn's
trilogy of the adventures of amorous Norman who seeks affection within the
confines of his family ... or more precisely his wife's family ... when his
wife fails to fulfill his needs. Every word is clearly delivered. Every plot
development is unmistakably presented. Every character complication is
plainly developed. Individual bits by individual performers work from time
to time. (Kim Scott Miller's mugging from a too-short chair at the dinner
table, for example, is a scream.) But still, as a whole, the piece
refuses to seem terribly funny.
Storyline: Annie has become the live in caregiver for
her bed-ridden mother. Her brother and his wife come to give her a break for
a weekend but are shocked to find that she's planning on spending it at a
sea-side resort with their sister's husband rather than with the neighbor
who has been haphazardly courting her.
Ayckbourn is a tremendously successful writer of
English comedies. He claims to have written seventy full-length plays, and it
does seem that a season isn't complete in the West End without at least one
new Ayckbourn comedy opening. On this side of the Atlantic he may be best
known as the lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber's least successful show,
Jeeves, which went on to become By Jeeves which also failed to
find much of an audience. When you churn out more than a play a year, you
may be tempted to come up with challenges beyond the mere writing of a
single play. With The Norman Conquests, he set himself a task that is
bigger than a one-play effort. It is a trilogy of plays all about the same
weekend events featuring the same cast of characters in the same home, but
with each taking place in a different location. Table Manners is the
first of the three and it takes place in the dining room. Then came
Living Together, which takes place in the sitting room, and Round and
Round the Garden, obviously set out of doors. An interesting concept,
this. But Table Manners suffers from the feeling that Ayckbourn is
holding back material to give himself something to write about in the next
two plays.
The always pleasurable Nigel Reed is the rather randy
and not too upstanding Norman, who doesn't seem to care where he gets
affection, just so long as he finally gets some. His need is made
understandable as the audience gets to know the character of his wife, played
by CeCe McGee-Newbrough as a a self-absorbed shrew. Janet Luby and Allyson
Tierney create a comfortable sibling bond as the care-giver and her
sister-in-law, and Peter Boyer gets off a number of sharp barbs as the
brother who really doesn't want to know all the shenanigans in the
household. Miller rings truest in the most bizarre of the characters who,
thus, has some of the funniest material. He's the next door neighbor.
The play is a natural for companies performing in
constrained spaces, for it takes place entirely in one room. Dave Buckler
created a nicely workable dining room in the Bay's basement theater and
Irene Sitoski's lighting design brings it to life over the period of the
play by varying the feel to match the time of day.
Written by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Lucinda
Merry-Browne. Fight choreography by Peter Boyer. Design: Dave Buckler (set)
Eric Langmeyer (costumes) JoAnn Gidos (properties) Irene Sitoski
(lights) Cristin Bieretz and Jacki Dixon (stage managers). Cast: Peter
Boyer, Janet Luby, CeCe McGee-Newbrough, Kim-Scott Miller, Nigel Reed,
Allyson Tierney. |
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February 23 - March 31,
2007
Picnic
Reviewed by
William Bryan |
Running
time 2:15 - one intermission
A well performed production
Click here to buy the script |
Labor Day. The classic last day of summer. The day when the final picnics
are held and people gather around with friends and family to relax together
one last time before returning to the world of school and work. Full of
apple pie, cold cuts, and the end of summer romances, this was the way
things once were on Labor Day. Unfortunately times have changed, with the
classic holiday shifting into one more sale, and the classic gatherings
becoming things of the past. In 1953 Labor Day was in its prime, as was this
Pulitzer prize winning play by William Inge, but while Labor day has adapted
as the years passed, the play has remained static, a snapshot of a time that
is quickly fading into our combined subconscious: “the good ole’ days.” Yet
the play refuses to fade and once more we find it staged in our area, this
time with the Bay Theater Company’s solid presentation. Reviewed three times
here in the past 5 years, this is a bread & butter, meat and potatoes play.
We cannot appreciate eating calamari and drinking champagne all the time
without occasionally sitting back to enjoy a simple burger and a beer, and
that is what this and other Inge plays represent: the staple fare of stage
work.
Storyline: In post World War II middle America, the women who occupy
two neighboring houses have their lives uprooted on the day and night of
the Labor Day Picnic when an attractive young drifter comes into town.
There isn’t any new
ground broken in this production. Director Gia Forakis does a fine job
of presenting a deeply satisfying work, molding her cast into a strong
ensemble that seems to fit the time and place: a small community in
Independence Kansas. Occasionally the lines seem forced, as if we have
forgotten how to have what is now considered “simpler troubles” of a
bygone time. This leads to occasional moments of overacting, but these
are few and far between. Judson Davis is just shy of the normal Adonis
that one expects of Hal, the stranger who turns the neighbor’s world
upside down simply by removing his shirt. The chemistry between him and Coty
Warn, who plays the older daughter, is a visible thing. Genevieve James,
who plays Madge, the brainy younger sister, is best when she has the
opportunity to show the longing and jealousy felt for the perceived ease
by which her older sister gathers compliments and admirers. The side
story between the old maid schoolteacher and the local store owner does
not come across with as real a feel as the other relationships and the
role of the school chum becomes almost an afterthought in this
production.
The staging is a
simple backyard. The two houses stand just far enough apart to share a
long clothesline stretched between them and the intervening space could
use a little better grass than the painted green wooden floor. The sound
design, though not credited in the program, is exceptional, becoming
almost a movie score from its vintage radio tunes to swelling emotional
background music at the end of the dramatic climaxes. Lighting changes
subtly as the day progresses and the view into the bathroom of the older
sister while she prepares for the picnic is almost guiltily voyeuristic
in its presentation.
Inge was best when
dealing with the dialogue between women, having written this play based
on the women he knew as a small child, and it is the relationships
between the women that come across most strongly in the Bay Company
production. The men are left to either be catalysts or to fill in as the
potato salad of our picnic while the performances of the females are the
main course. This is a solid production, fitting in well as spring tries
to make its return to the area, reminding us of summer, and love, and
loss, and the hard choices we must make, as adults or as children
becoming adults.
Written by
William Inge. Directed by Gia Forakis. Design: Lee Savage (set),
Lauri Petroy
(choreographer), Irene Sitoski (lights), Eric Langmeyer (costumes),
Tupper Stevens (stage manager). Cast: Marilyn Benett, Judson Davis,
Kathryn Falcone, Genevieve James, Valerie Leonard, Brandon McCoy, Andrew
Pecoraro, Mark Poremba, Coty Warn. |
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December 1, 2006 - January 13,
2007
A Man of No
Importance
Reviewed by
Brad Hathaway |
Running time 2:20 - one
intermission
t A Potomac
Stages Pick for a heartwarming
intimate musical
Click here to buy CD |
This is why we review so many shows at so many
theaters throughout the Potomac region - to find these gems and spread the
word. The Bay Theatre Company is
offering a fabulous production of a surprisingly little known gem of musical
theater in its seventy-seat theater. It captures the imagination, warms the
heart and sends you out with that satisfied feeling that is unique to the
magic of live musical theater. The orchestra accompaniment isn't live -
its recorded. But they didn't have room for an orchestra in the hall anyway,
and it is so well done that it is neither a distraction or a
disappointment. The cast is strong where it needs to be strong and the
musical values are impressive. The piece, a musical that premiered in 2002
at the Lincoln Center in New York where it won the Outer Critics Circle
award for outstanding Off-Broadway musical, is a warm hearted story of
acceptance with a delightful score by Flaherty and Ahrens.
Storyline: In Dublin in the Spring of 1964, a
solitary and reserved ticket taker on the local bus lives for the poetry of
Oscar Wilde and the theater group at his Catholic Church where he
directs the annual production. This year he wants to mount Wilde's
Salome but he needs both a leading lady and a leading man. A new rider
on the bus, a lovely young woman, seems just right for the part of Salome
and the bus driver could well be the right man for the play. His
sister, with whom he lives, sees in the woman a chance to get him wed at
last although he has eyes not for her but for the driver. With the
inspiration of Wilde's own passions, he comes to know that all you can do in
life is "Love The One You Love."
In 2002 the team of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn
Ahrens (Once on This Island, Seussical) reunited with book writer Terrence
McNally (Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Full Monty) with whom they had
written what many feel is the last great musical of the twentieth century,
Ragtime. Unlike that sprawling, multi-story masterpiece, however,
this time they were working on a slender, tender story that required the
lightest of touches and an underlying openness of spirit. One of the
delightful things about Flaherty and Ahrens' work is that it always is such
a good match for the story they are telling. The songs here are a match to
the intimate scale of the story with a genuine touch of the Irish in the
music and a lilt to the lyrics. McNally's book tells its story within the
framework of a play being put on by the church theater group, which works
very well for a small troupe like the Bay, and in telling the story, hits
both the humor and the humanity inherent in the tale. It isn't difficult to
believe that the work is from the pen of the man who wrote both Love!
Valor! Compassion! and Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune.
Karl Kippola gives a sensitive performance in
which his singing is as strong as his acting (or is it the other way
around?) in the central role, and he is backed by some sterling support. The
clear voice and youthful presence of Judson Davis is a good match for his
bus driver. Gillian Shelly is refreshingly straight forward as his sister,
capturing both her love and her frustration over her brother's life. She
teams with Kim-Scott Miller for the comic
"Books," one of the highlights of the show. Miller doubles as her suitor, the
butcher who fancies himself the star of the church theater group, and as
Oscar Wilde himself. Each of the members of the church group double in
order to perform the piece with a cast of just ten. It had fifteen in its
New York premiere.
The program gives no credit for set design,
instead there is a credit for set consultation by nationally known Potomac
region regular James Kronzer. However the process went, the result is a very
effective use of space creating each of the locales required with just a few
straight chairs, a table and a platform. The Bay performs in a space in the
basement of an office building with no flies, no proscenium and no wings,
but they manage here to create a world for the story that is inviting and
effective. Irene Sitoski's lighting is amazingly evocative given the
constraints she is working under. With very few lights and practically no
space, she manages to create day and night atmospheres with bright spaces
for big numbers and tight spotlights for introspective solos. The voices of
the cast fill the space nicely with each solo delivered cleanly and just
enough Irish brogue to be believable but not so much as to distract or keep
the audience from understanding every word.
Music by Stephen Flaherty. Lyrics by Lynn
Ahrens. Book by Terrence McNally. Based on the film, screenplay by Barry
Devlin. Directed by Lucinda Merry-Browne. Music direction by Anita O'Connor.
Choreography by Jen Kohlhafer. Design: James Kronzer (set consultant) Carrie
Gross (costumes) Jo Ann Gidos (properties) Irene Sitoski (lights) Tupper
Stevens (stage manager). Cast: Debbie Barber-Eaton, Judson Davis, Kathryn
Falcone, Zehra Fazal, Erin Kennedy, Karl Kippola, Kim-Scott Miller, Gillian
Shelly, Gregory Stuart, Joe Thornhill. |
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