by George Patterson
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Guys And Dolls
The Rivertown Repertory Theatre in Kenner has closed its season with an excellently performed and costumed production of the Abe Burrows, Jo Swirling, Frank Loesser musical comedy classic, Guys and Dolls. Unfortunately, its scenic elements are sub par, even by community theatre standards.
Indifferently "designed" by the theatre's technical director, Robert Self, this show looks like it's happening in Nieuw Amsterdam, not New York, and nowhere near the 40's Times Square of Damon Runyon upon whose short stories about the gambling denizens of that colorful haunt this musical is based. There is not an ounce of imagination displayed from the clunky, flat painted dollhouses with magic-marker signs to the ludicrous grey plywood drop for the sewer scene festooned with what looks like rotting burlap.
But no matter - director/choreographer Alton Geno, a veteran of Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre, has amassed an excellent cast of young musical comedy veterans (and a couple of oldsters) who take to this material like ducks to water and everything they sing rings clear as a bell - with one exception.
One of the three plots in the book has to do with whether Nathan Detroit (UNO's David W. Hoover) can find a place to hold his crap game which is to be attended by Chicago's ace gangster, Big Jule (pronounced "Julie"). Mr. Geno thought it would be clever - and funny - to cast a "zaftig" female in this part and play her as a big bull dyke. Unfortunately, this puts a dubious spin on the proceedings, turning dramatic tension into silly putty and making the performer (Renee Saussaye) extremely self-conscious in her ill-fitting coat and tie. Suddenly Sky Masterson's (Marc J. Fouchi) big number in the sewer (where the game is finally held), "Luck Be A Lady," takes on a whole new, and unnecessary, meaning.
Another of the three plots concerns the star gambler of the gang, the aforementioned Sky Masterson, and his bet with Nathan that he can take Sarah Brown (Sarah Jane McMahon), a member of the local chapter of the Salvation Army called the Save-A-Soul Mission, to dinner within 24 hours. As acted and sung by Mr. Fouchi and Ms. McMahon, the duo, with the invaluable help of Loesser's timeless songs ("I'll Know", "If I Were A Bell" and "My Time of Day" ) infuse the proceedings with an intoxicating freshness - these two absolutely belong together.
Likewise the pairing of Eva Earls as Adelaide, the show's cabaret comedienne, with Hoover's Nathan Detroit - a couple who've been engaged to be married for fourteen years which has caused Adelaide to suffer from a pyschosomatic post-nasal drip - are 14 carat. Ms. Earls' ability to out Holiday Judy or out Blaine Vivian, is priceless. She owns this role.
Randy Juneau as Nicely-Nicely Johnson reminds one of the inimitable Stubby Kaye - only Mr. Juneau's much more lithe on his feet and his "Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat" dazzles. Likewise, with his other cohorts in mayhem, Kasey Marino as Benny Southstreet and Mat J. Grau, III as Rusty Charlie, the bar is set at the highest level with their opening "Fugue For Tinhorns."
Oldster Robert MacDowell displays a big, booming voice as Arvide Abernathy, the bass drummer of the mission band, in his one touching number sung to a distraught Sarah, "More I Cannot Wish You," an Irish lullaby, that is unfortunately harshened at its finale by showy vocal ministrations - an unfortunate choice by musical director Barbara Moras.
Ms. Moras conducts her small orchestra tentatively at first, metronomically-the overture is not promising. But once the performers take over, she rightly lets their energy dictate the tempo and things become most euphonious as the play progresses to its ultimate happy ending with its dual wedding. Vocally, this production cannot be faulted.
Michael Cahill adds dramatic weight in the non-singing role of Lt. Brannigan, thwarted at every turn in his Javertian desire to catch the lowlifes in their gaming.
Newcomer costumier Scott Sauber, whose only credits seem to be from St. Dominic School, displays much promise with his various cartoony striped suits and loud shirt and tie combinations to say nothing of the colorful outfits he's created for Adelaide and her Hot Box Girls.
Rivertown's next show, and the 1999-2000 season opener, the British musical comedy Me and My Girl, will also be directed and choreographed by Mr. Geno and will be followed by Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit with Joe Warfield directing; the Kander and Ebb revue The World Goes 'Round again helmed by Mr. Geno (starring Cynthia Owen?); a Ken Risch directed Conversations With My Father by Herb Gardner; and, the Neil Simon, Marvin Hamlish, David Zipple Broadway musical comedy bomb, The Goodbye Girl, also directed by Mr. Risch.
Moon Over Montevideo
For his spring production, NORD's long-time director Ty Tracy has reprised his very first original musical comedy, Moon Over Montevideo, with book and lyrics by Bob Bruce and David Cuthbert set to music by Danny Rubio and Ruth Moore, which he first presented twenty-five years ago.
Since this is a satire on the 20th Century Fox musicals of the forties - The Gang's All Here, Down Argentine Way, Weekend in Havana - that featured such movie stars as Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, Cesar Romero and Edward Everett Horton, the opportunities for puns, which comprise most of the verbal jests are rampant and neither Mr. Cuthbert nor his partner in wordplay, Mr. Bruce, leave no tortilla unturned.
Mr. Tracy's cast have a delightful time with this tuneful confection. All are excellent, from veteran Luis Q. Barroso as the ditheringly lecherous Edward Everett Norton and vivacious Angela Mannino as Carmen Verandah (whose mangled Spanglish gives new meaning to "malapropism") to Emily Antrainer's blondine Alice Foy and her sidekick "Steve" Arden played with deadpan drollery by Sarah DeBacher. Others in this high octane cast are Leo Jones as Jack Hokie, the booking agent who has brought this collection of wiseacres to the Casa Caliente Montevideo in Uraguay, a broken down hotel that is going to be saved from financial ruin through a radio show that is being broadcast "coast to coast to Costa Rica," for which Anthony Jones' Cesar Bolero is the emcee and Vic Palazzo's 8 X 10 glossy John Ameche performs with, and falls for, the lovely Alice Foy. Teresa Wilson's Mrs. Charlotte Grinswood Norton adds spice as the cuckolded wife who puts the kibosh on the budding romance between her roving-eyed hubbie and Ms. Verandah to the utter delight of the full house.
The nineteen songs are an eclectic grab bag of Caribbean tempi, with a couple of waltz time ballads that offer brief respites from the gales of guffaws this hurricane of humor spawns. Gloria C. Fallo's musical direction is once again flawless. Leo Jones serves double duty as the show's choreographer; Phillip Wagar's setting is appropriately cheesy as are Bob Bruce's tongue-in-cheek forties costumes.
Not Waving ...But Drowning
The Contemporary Arts Center, under the leadership of Jay Wiegel, has so changed its commitment to theatre that its two theatres are now dark more than lit, held hostage to private rentals and bookings for such money-making endeavors as wedding receptions and parties. Indeed, there is a move afoot to revamp Theatre II and turn it into a recital space which, from the look of its current tenant, a drama called Not Waving... being presented by NestEGG Productions (in conjunction with the Contemporary Art Center's Performance Support Program-exactly what is the CAC supporting?), the conversion is happening none too soon.
Theatre II has no A/C and as, no doubt, a further means of reducing the unnecessary use of electricity, only minuscule lighting equipment.
The play's title is taken from a Stevie Smith poem, a portion of which is published in the program: "I was much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning...." Written by Gen LeRoy, a children's story writer and the wife of set designer Tony Walton, this is her first effort at "serious" drama and won the prestigious South Florida Carbondell Award in 1997. From the CAC production, one is hard pressed to understand why.
Gabby (Janet Shea) is a repressed, uptight middle-aged mother whose experiences in trying to understand her manic-depressive oft-institutionalized grown daughter Nicole (Tracy Hernandez) comprises the action that makes up this multi-scene play, the core of which is their attempts to rescue Nicole's cat from her estranged lover, Mark (Gary Rucker) and his new girlfriend, Helen (Amy Alvarez). The mother and daughter become cat burglers climbing on the roof and entering through a window in the dark only to steal the wrong cat which sends daughter into a downward tailspin. Mother learns karate and returns and gets the cat and mother and daughter find solace. Along the way Rucker and Alvarez play a number of roles (doctor, nurse, etc.) and inanimate objects and handle a multitude of clumsy props. In the end, Gaby has learned to loosen up and Nicole is once again in the hospital.
While the crudely constructed and flat-painted set by designer Rhodes did nothing to establish place, it served as an unfortunate obstacle course for the actors, to say nothing of the plethora of crudely executed props the unfortunate actors had to manipulate (Alvarez and Rucker as a dressing table that didn't work-a heavy rubber tricycle wheel as a steering wheel for the diminutive Shea).
These fine actors will no doubt go on to more successful ventures; in Not Waving... they are drowning.
Me & My Girl Auditions
Rivertown Repertory Theatre, 325 Minor St., in Kenner's Rivertown District, will hold auditions for the award winning 1937 British musical comedy Me and My Girl on Sat., May 29. Director/choreographer Alton Geno is interested in seeing dancers and singers for chorus and principal roles aged 18 and over. Dancers (appropriately dressed) will be auditioned from 10am to 12 noon. Singers will be auditioned from 1pm to 3pm. Bring sheet music in your key. An accompanist will be provided. Auditions will be held on the main stage. Me and My Girl will open Rivertown Rep's 12 season on Sept. 10 and fun for four weekends through Oct. 3. For more information call 504.468.7221.
