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This level of goofiness
isn't easy to maintain over a two act evening, but David Lindsay-Abaire
simply never seems to run out of wacky comic ideas. He came as a breath of
fresh air with his off the wall view of the world, and has had a string of
successes with Kimberly Akimbo, Fuddy Meers and this travel
comedy with its screwball viewpoint grounded in a few simple human truths.
It was a big success four years ago in New York with Sarah Jessica Parker as
the dissatisfied woman with lots of life left to live. Now MET gives it a
production that matches the wacky with whimsy of its own and a cast of seven
tackling the dozen interesting characters in its wild story.
Storyline: A woman with a long list of things she wants to do during her
life leaves her boring husband and boards a bus for Niagara Falls. She
befriends a woman on the bus who is taking a barrel with her to commit
suicide by going over the falls. Together they meet a variety of strange
characters in the tourist areas of the town, on the tour ship Maid of the
Mist, and on the observation platform behind the falls themselves.
Lindsay-Abaire peppers the piece with
one-liners, off-kilter observations and characters with unique identities.
Each of the characters may be simple enough to describe in a single phrase
(the dull husband, the suicidal alcoholic, the romantic tour boat captain)
but human enough to be cared about. He keeps coming up with wild concepts
and builds each into a well structured scene in a story that makes sense
right up to the final moments. Then, his dramatic (as opposed to comic)
inventiveness seems to fail him, leaving the piece with an improbable ending
that really doesn't resolve some of the outstanding story. Still, if the
resolution isn't as satisfying as you might want, the journey right up to
the end is a kick.
Director Peter Wray avoids slow spots but
still keeps the pace below the frantic which serves the script well, leaving
time to absorb some of the silliness. The wackiness of the world of the play
is well represented by Tad James' set design in which furniture and doors
appear to grow out of the painted backdrop, which, under Paul Shillinger's
lights, can be a dull hotel room or a wall of water.
Lisa Burl brings a sense of logic to all the
weird concepts that circle around her as the wife in search of excitement,
while Julie Herber offers some of the funniest silent glances as the
suicidal side kick. Mikael Johnson's spoken scenes as the abandoned husband
are good but it is his two pantomime moments that are the best, while DC
Cathro never really rises to the level of levity required for the captain of
the Maid of the Mist. The team of Marilyn Bennet and David Yackley as
private detectives is a delightful pairing as Bennett brings a sort of
worn-down fatalism to her part driven by the wide-eyed enthusiasm of Yackley.
Each of these has a well constructed character to portray while lucky Gené
Fouché gets six silly identities to play with. Play with them she does -
especially the three waitresses in a three-restaurant scene that really
rides on her sense of timing.
Written by David Lindsay-Abaire. Directed by
Peter Wray. Design: Tad James (set) Julia Golbey (costumes) Lorrie Tripp
(properties) Paul Shillinger (lights) Tom Majarov (sound) Ken Poisson (stage
manager). Cast: Marilyn Bennet, Lisa Burl, DC Cathro, Gené Fouché, Julie
Herber, Mikael Johnson, David Yackley. |
