With plenty of PG-13 rated Borscht Belt, burlesque-style “nudge nudge, wink wink” spinning humor, Arlington’s Signature Theatre is bringing a musical bauble, the premiere of Cloak and Dagger or the Case of the Golden Venus.

It is musical theater under the confident direction of Eric Schaeffer meant to bring a respite from the real world. And that is a very good thing, given the real world lately.

Cloak and Dagger has a full complement of hard-working purposeful groaners of jokes that Milton Berle may have written, some delightful hip-swinging ala Mae West by way of Harvey Feinstein, and mugs that Sheldon Leonard once played. If those names are fresh in your mind, along with Sunday nights with Ed Sullivan, or a trip to the Catskills, or perhaps the modern equivalent, a cruise ship meandering about. You can have a ball especially if you are in the mood for some anodyne bawdiness.

As the Signature marketing material notes, the storyline is this: “Third-rate detective Nick Cutter is down on his luck when a beautiful blonde bombshell tosses a very intriguing case (and herself) into his lap. For the next 90 minutes, Nick races through every New York neighborhood in this zany, mile-a-minute whodunit.” All in early 1950’s New York City. It isn’t Stacey Keach as Mike Hammer, but as a singing detective.

Four actors play the nearly 20 roles. Well make that two actors play nearly 18 roles. The cast includes Erin Driscoll as Jessica Rabbit, oops, I meant Helena Troy. Driscoll was most recently seen at Signature in The Three Penny Opera. Down-on-his-luck Detective Nick Cutter is played by Signature newcomer Doug Carpenter. The other 18 characters are under the amusing purview of Helen Hayes Awardees Christopher Bloch and Ed Dixon.

Oh, and one other small detail. Dixon also wrote the book, music and lyrics for this world premiere production of Cloak and Dagger. His score of about nineteen numbers, including several reprised songs, is a pastiche of lyrics and melody that mimics the spoofing nature of the production and its off-beat characters. There are plenty of percussion and sax-like notes that emanate from conductor Jenny Cartney and her jazzy four-piece band that includes keyboard, reeds and drums. Colorful orchestration by Jordon Ross Weinhold adds personality to each of the characters.

Some cute songs and their titles include “A Real Woman” with a vamping Mae West (Dixon) and an animated “Shake Your Maracas” (Bloch and Dixon). Driscoll gets to use her lovely, lovely voice in a torchy number entitled “Doors Close.” Carpenter’s beefy baritone opens the show with musical introductions of what the show is about: “The Worst of Times” and “The Best of Times.” Is the score memorable? Not really. But so what.

As for the dialogue; the quips can be witty shtick delivered with a knowing glance to make sure the audience is in on it. The broad pokes at the many different people who make up New York are not meant to harm.

The show is full of old-fashioned, New York City accented car-chase speed playful dialogue. The actors move about the minimally adorned stage (Daniel Conway) through three well-used doors, matching the dialogue delivery speed. There is also a large, sturdy-appearing marquee over the doors that provides a place for large black and white photos of New York City to be seen to set a New York state of mind.

The ever-changing costumes for Block and Dixon by way of Kathleen Geldard are a bright treat of flowing silks, or perhaps polyester, character defining hats, suits with wide lapels, and bemusing cross-dressing attire. And, there is also one very special neon yellow glowing image of the Lady in the New York harbor. Wig designer Anne Nesmith certainly enjoyed herself with her campy selections. As for Driscoll, she is wrapped in a form-hugging, cardinal red pencil dress.

Up for something with amusement, silliness, and banter propelled by a lively score and excellent voices? Then head off to Cloak and Dagger at Signature Theatre. It is a screwball musical to ice you down during this summer heat wave. Marvel at what tongue-in-cheek delivery whether straight dialogue or song can prove; a good time.

Photo Gallery

Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll) sings ‘Doors Close’	Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll) tosses an intriguing case to Nick Cutter (Doug Carpenter)
The Irish Landlady (Ed Dixon) sings ‘A Real Woman’	Manny (Christopher Bloch) sings ‘An Agent’
Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll) sings ‘Chinatown Blues’	Fat Tony (Ed Dixon), Nick Cutter (Doug Carpenter) and Gino (Christopher Bloch) sing ‘Who Put the Mob In’
Stanley (Christopher Bloch) and Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll)	Nick Cutter (Doug Carpenter, center) and Pinsky’s Chorus Girls sing ‘Shake Your Maracas’

Photos by Margot Schulman

Cast

• Nick Cutter: Doug Carpenter
• Helena Troy: Erin Driscoll
• Character Man Two: Christopher Bloch 
• Character Man One: Ed Dixon

Artistic and Design Team

• Book, Music & Lyrics by Ed Dixon
• Directed by Eric Schaeffer
• Orchestrations: Jordon Ross Weinhold
• Music Director: Jenny Cartney
• Scenic Design: Daniel Conway
• Costume Design: Kathleen Geldard
• Lighting Design: Collin K. Bills
• Sound Design: Lane Elms
• Wig Design: Anne Nesmith
• Stage Manager: Julie Meyer

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

In the polished, strongly sung production of The Threepenny Opera at Signature, there are still stings of social critique from Brecht and Weill that make their marks in the venom-laden book and score.

Signature’s marketing material describes The Threepenny Opera as ,” a satirical commentary on politics, poverty, injustice and corruption at all levels of society. The haves clash with the have-nots while Macheath, the ultimate sneering anti-hero, perches in the middle of the storm.”

With that as a preface, The Threepenny Opera directed by Gardiner (Tender Napalm, Dreamgirls, Really Really) is a work of musical theater artistry. The adaption Gardiner uses is the 1994 work of Robert David MacDonald (book) and Jeremy Sams (lyrics). They moved the originally conceived Brecht and Weill proceedings from its Queen Victoria moorings, to a “not-too-distant future” Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth II has passed away and her grandson, Prince William, is to be crowned King. MacDonald and Sams also added in contemporary cultural references in both book and lyrics.

Threepenny begins with a terrific, gritty brass and reed-centric eight-piece jazz band under the wonderful musical direction of Gabriel Mangiante. The overture brings us into the fray. A dark-haired woman slowly steps into view: dead center. Lights, little by little, come up on her. We are introduced to a seedy world by a street-walker named Jenny (a raw, hooded-eyes, hypnotic Natascia Diaz). She is clearly street-wise, but lost, almost dead in the eyes, as she ever so slowly, enunciates each word, each syllable of the lyrics “The Flick Knife Song” about the crook, rapist, sadist and quick with a knife, Macheath (Mack the Knife).

I simply cannot image being Diaz taking this iconic song on. Jeez, think about the many versions of this song, and the number of artists who have sung it. Diaz had to sweep them away to get the show up and running. She took the audience by its collective neck with one hand to bring them into the rough world of Threepenny Opera. Diaz did that and more. With each word and syllable, her diction pure, her darkly tinged voice drew the audience into her world. She effectively grounded Threepenny Opera.

Then, she dropped her grip and the show went on. Throughout the show, Diaz in her singing and appearances, projects pain and being battered with an “I will get by attitude.” She is not so emotionally broken that she can’t or won’t find ways to strike back at those who did her ill.

We next come to meet the smooth, slick charm of Bobby Smith in his role of Jonathan Peachum, the boss of London’s beggars. A man of self-interest, he takes a cut of each beggar’s take. He is one of Macheath’s adversaries.

A stronger, more vigorous antagonist of Macheath is Mrs. Peachum. Donna Migliaccio gives a delightfully spirited, fare-thee-well to the evils of Mrs. Peachum. With a raspy, well-lived life voice, Migliaccio gives off a special dislike for Macheath. After all he has taken her daughter Polly in marriage. But, even deeper, is Mrs. Peachum’s disdain for marriage in general as she claws through “The Ballad of Sexual Imperative” with its lyrics suggesting marriage as just another form of prostitution.

Soon enough, Macheath appears in the guise of a raffish, supposedly good with a blade, Mitchell Jarvis. Even with inked arms, he did give off shivers in his initial entrance and time with his good-old boy cronies. He came alive later when paired with the women characters such as Polly or Jenny. His brings some comic relief to the whole affair at the top of Act III with his solo “The Ballad of Easy Life.”

The bright-eyed, full-of-life Erin Driscoll is the Peachum’s daughter, Polly. She appears first as an innocent kitten. With a blond, curly bob and her fair-skin, she is set visually against the dark-haired, olive-skinned Diaz as feminine engines of the production. As the play progresses, she reveals her own greedy, tough-minded self, including desires for the right kind of rougher man to bring her fulfillment. When she sings “Pirate Jenny,” first as a tease than as an authentic being, she is a woman truly seeking revenge on those higher up in the economic food chain.

Rick Hammerly is cast as Lucy Brown, another of Macheath’s lovers; a cute touch; just this side of campy. It is an enjoyable moment to watch as Hammerly and Driscoll argue through song and body language over the love of Macheath in “Jealousy Duet” when both show up in the jail where he is locked up. John Leslie Wolfe as Jackie “Tiger” Brown a police inspector on the take gives off a believable corrupted characterization with an air of authority.

The graffiti-strewn scenic design by Misha Kachman at the MAX is a two level affair. The band is on the top level along with characters who sometimes look down upon the main floor with its mixing bowl of action. A moving electronic stock market ticker and neon signage festooned the set. The electronic ticker also crawls with phrases such as “the greatest human force is human selfishness” and “wolves devour sheep.” Rocco DiSanti is credited with the video design. One cunning, contemporary touch is the use of smartphones to take pictures.

Frank Labovitz’s costumes let us know who is who quite readily. There is a thuggish or hip-hop look for some, suits for the rich folk and an assortment of styles. Polly has a saucy outfit and the prostitutes the usual black lingerie.

As The Threepenny Opera ends, loose ends tied up and all is again right with the world, the show closes with a plea for generosity to the less fortunate and the homeless; “For life today is cold and grey and ghastly, And living it is punishment enough.” Strong sentiments indeed, but delivered and missed. Perhaps it is the zeitgeist or the constant 24/7 media cycle of the social media-centric world outside the MAX.

Three Penny is a work of artistic excellence; accessible to a wide-ranging audience. As for raising outrage at economic inequality or the trafficking of women into prostitution; those are much different questions. Are there too many decades since the 1928 Berlin world of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill and their particular type of sharp critique of Capitalism? I wonder what Thomas Piketty author of the current best-seller, “Capital in the Twenty-first Century” might ponder?

Reviewer’s Note: “Mack the Knife” has been recorded as a jazz and pop standard by oodles of performers such as Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darrin, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra to name a few. For your reviewer, I was imprinted with Lotta Lenya who came into my world through my parents, as well as Marianne Faithfull and one who made a very early impression, the late German comedian and actor Wolfgang Neuss used by Ernie Kovacs on his ground-breaking comedy television show from about 1960.

Cast

• Macheath (Mack the Knife): Mitchell Jarvis
• Jenny: Natascia Diaz
• Mr. Peachum: Bobby Smith
• Mrs. Peachum: Donna Migliaccio
• Polly Peachum: Erin Driscoll
• Tiger Brown: John Leslie Wolfe
• Lucy Brown: Rick Hammerly
• Matt of the Mint: Paul Scanlan
• Crook-Finger Jake: Sean Fri
• Chainsaw Bob: Ryan Sellers
• Fitch/Weeping Willow Walter: Aaron Bliden
• Smith/Reverend Kimball : Thomas Adrian Simpson
• Jimmy/Nelly: Jessica Thorne
• Betty: Jamie Eacker
• Vixen: Katherine Renee Turner
• Dance Captain: Jamie Eacker

Musicians

• Conductor/Keyboard: Gabriel Mangiante and Jacob Kidder
• Reed 1: Ben Bokor
• Reed 2: Ed Walters
• Trumpet 1: Chris Walker
• Trumpet 2: Brent Madsen
• Trombone: Adam McColley
• Guitar: Gerry Kunkel
• Percussion: Joe McCarthy

Artistic and Design Team

• Books & Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
• Music by Kurt Weill
• English translation of dialog by Robert David MacDonald
• English translation of lyrics by Jeremy Sams
• Directed and choreographed by Matthew Gardiner
• Musical Direction by Gabriel Mangiante
• Dialect Direction by Lynn Watson
• Scenic Design by Misha Kachman
• Costume Design by Frank Labovitz
• Wig Design by Anne Nesmith
• Lighting Design by Colin K. Bills
• Sound Design by Lane Elms
• Video Design by Rocco DiSanti
• Production Stage Manager: Kerry Epstein
• Assistant Director and Dramaturg: Paige Kiliany
• Assistant Director: Walter Ware III
• Assistant Stage Manager: Erin C. Patrick

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

What a jolt! What a rush! What mayhem being dished up.

I had just witnessed a gripping, brutal mixed martial arts battle at Signature Theater. It was chock full of verbal strikes and grappling, spoken punches and jabs, uttered thrusts and parries as two characters, He and She circled each other, taking their measure of one another. They were caged together, each holding the other’s leash.

There was not a visible wall in sight to keep the two from escaping one another. They didn’t want to.

At the very same performance, from the same two characters, I witnessed tender acts of generous protection and unconditional love. The two made sure that things did not totally fall apart so that only one would be victorious; only one left standing and breathing. They needed each other so much. The alternative was to be alone to live with demons that would have consumed them.

What was it that left such a strong impression? Signature’s production of Tender Napalm, a 2012 work written by British playwright Philip Ripley. Ripley is a rare sighting in the DC area. According to the Signature marketing material the last seen of his work, The Pitchfork Disney, was produced about two decades ago by Woolly Mammoth. Ripley seems to be known as an “In-Yer-Face” provocateur. Now that is no understatement.

“I imagine this play as the headspace between two people who have been in a long relationship,” stated Tender Napalm director Matthew Gardiner (Signature Theatre’s Really Really and Dreamgirls; Ford’s Theatre’s The Laramie Project), “As if two people who are so close could dream or have a nightmare together. It is the place where they are able to fully speak their minds. Philip Ridley seeks to reinvent the language of love, and the results are stunning.” Gardiner delivered the goods.

Tender Napalm features Laura C. Harris (Bachelorette at Studio Theatre; Seminar at Round House Theatre; The Winter’s Tale at Folger Theatre) as She and Elan Zafir (Off-Broadway in Romeo & Juliet, Inner Workings of Man, Peter Pan) as He. They are nameless in the production. Both are making their Signature Theatre debuts. They are matched well visually; she petite in stature with eyes that carry strength and hurt, while he has a softness often hidden under a gruff exterior. They are both fearless and believable.

So, what is the story line your reviewer writes about so breathlessly? Let’s have Mr. Ridley speak for himself. “In essence, it’s a very simple theatrical story: a man and a woman are locked at a crucial point in their relationship. They love each other but something terrible has happened.” His two very damaged people do what they must to survive.

Ripley has created a number of connected playlets of a few minutes length each to make up a 90 minute, intermission-free whole. It is a balanced power between the characters. Each has the opportunity to take the lead, even at times providing stage directions to the other. It works as they thrust and parry, but always on the look-out to rescue one another. Some might see the characters presenting just special fetishes; others might see a ritualistic game of switching Dominance and Submission.

The couple had met years before as teenagers, quickly fell in love, and seemed to have had and lost a young daughter. Now they find themselves adrift on an island, somewhere between real life and imaginary worlds after a tsunami has destroyed everything. They are, or see themselves, as alone as survivors with monkeys, sea serpents, UFO’s, as well as creepy visions and a wonderfully sweet story of unicorns.

Under Gardiner’s tight, unyielding vision for Tender Napalm, there is a remarkable physicality. Nothing is static, even when the cast is just sitting. There are scenes of great menace, of eye-popping destructive fantasy, as well as absolute tenderness. In a blink, power in the production is seamlessly exchanged between the two actors.

The scenic design by Luciana Stecconi is a boxing ring set square in the middle of the ARK about a foot off the floor. There are no ropes surrounding the ring to keep the action contained. The two characters do that all on their own. The floor of the ring has a glossy sheen through which under-lighting from Colin K. Bills changes the atmospherics. Laree Lentz’s costumes are loose-fitting garments; Harris in jeans and a delicate top and Zafir in a three-button cotton pullover and khaki slacks. Their outfits give them an everyday appearance. Neither has a domineering outward appearance.

This is a challenging play for mature audiences. No doubt about that. Be warned, some language may seem offensive, but stick with it. This is certainly a production in which ritualistic anger can seem to rule, with verbal skills replacing physical contact. But it works. There is balance between the two characters. Each has the opportunity to be a top. Zafir gets to be King for a time, and Harris an opportunity to be Queen.

Ripley’s Tender Napalm fascinates because there is a special kind of shared devotion at its core even with the frenetic life the audiences witnesses. It works because of sweet moments such as near the end. We are watching the couple languidly dances together, if only for a few fleeting seconds. They dance to a snippet of what sounds like variations on the melancholy of Erik Satie’s “Trois Gymnopedies.”

Tender Napalm will rivet an adventuresome audience because Ripley’s characters and story have a complexity to chew on. It is far from quiet moonlight reflecting on a placid sound in summer. But, in its own way, is it so far from the reality that we may occasionally think in our heads, but dare not speak?

Note: Tender Napalm contains strong language; for mature audiences only.

Photo Gallery

Elan Zafir and Laura C. Harris	Laura C. Harris and Elan Zafir
Laura C. Harris and Elan Zafir

Photos by Christopher Mueller

Cast

• Woman: Laura C. Harris
• Man: Elan Zafir

Creative and Design Team

• Directed: Matthew Gardiner
• Scenic Design: Luciana Stecconi
• Costume Design: Laree Lentz
• Lighting Design: Colin K. Bills
• Sound Design and Original Compositions: Eric Shimelonis
• Production Stage Manager: Julie Meyer

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

I brushed aside the movie version of “Beaches” that was playing in my head when I walked in to see the world premiere musical Beaches, now at Signature Theatre. The musical is upon based upon the 1985 novel by Iris Rainer Dart. The new musical’s book is by Dart and Thom Thomas. Ms. Dart also wrote the lyrics.

I made sure to silence Bette Midler’s 1988 hit “The Wind Beneath My Wings” in my head as well. I wanted to clearly see and hear what was before me at this production.

As always before a show, I read the program notes to see what hints they gave of the playwright’s or director’s thinking behind the production. Dart wrote of a friend’s comment from decades before; “When one of us dies, I hope it’s me first because I wouldn’t want to live on a planet that didn’t have you on it.” She mentioned a statistic she had located that “a large percentage of women said if they were ever forced to choose, they would give up their husbands before they would give up their best friends.” Ok.

Dart added, “I think the reason that Beaches affects people is because when our time comes, all of us would want to be able to exit laughing with our best friend beside us. Go home and call your best friend tonight.” Ok, fair enough.

I wondered, was I to be a stranger in a strange land?

With that said let’s move on to the actual production of Beaches. First, the musical is affectionately directed by Signature Theatre’s Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer. He has a soft hand in bringing this diary of two friends to an audience. The creative team includes Ms. Dart (book & lyrics), Thom Thomas (book) and David Austin (music). The score has about twenty new songs. The new music by Austin with lyrics by Dart are all one could ask for. The score is mood-setting with each song reminiscent of a certain time, adding emotional value to the spoken words of the script. There is, of course, a performance of “The Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Beaches follows the thirty-year, complicated friendship of two women, Bertie and Cee Cee, who met as little girls on the beach of Atlantic City, NJ in 1951. In the days before social media, they became the 1950’s equivalent of digital BFF’s: letter writing by hand pen-pals. Their deep friendship perseveres through many a bump. They remain constant friends, well mostly, through the perils of growing up with dysfunctional parents, personal hardships, work choices, marriages, divorces, children, infinite differences in their personalities and the ultimate ending all face in life.

The two fictional friends are played by Alysha Umpress as Cee Cee and Mara Davi as Bertie. They are as good as gold in their acting prowess. Their vocal talents simply shine. Matthew Scott portrays Cee Cee’s husband with felt feelings. His vocal abilities are well deserving of the two solos he has (including a teasing cute “Ce-Celia) and a duet with Umpress of “Enough” presenting the ends of a failed marriage. The cast of four young women (Maya Brettell, Gracie Johnson, Presley Ryan and Brooklyn Shuck) who play younger versions of adults Bertie and Cee Cee are a delight; they are totally in sync with their roles from the get-go. Donna Migliaccio has a way with Yiddish words with a great big guttural hardness from the back of the throat. She is Cee Cee’s Jersey Jewish Mom. Helen Hedman is a classic in her role as Bertie’s very traditional uptight, protective waspy mother.

The musical propels forward with a mix of songs about life. There is a reflective ballad from Cee Cee “God Gave You Me”; a send-up, over-the-top, disco number “(I’m) All I Need” by Cee Cee and Ensemble, a delightfully choreographed performance by the three Bertie’s and three Cee Cee’s as they think about life as a wife, “My Perfect Wedding” and “Normal People” with Cee Cee and Bertie dreaming of living as roommates on the beach. “The Wind Beneath My Wings” comes later in Act II.

The scenic design by Derek McLane is wholly visually interesting. Surrounding an old-fashioned proscenium arch are stacked up high, wall to ceiling, oodles of faded into a grey tone beach furniture. The sound is often of the Jersey shore or California beach with lapping waves. Costumes for Umphress are often a bawdy visual joy while those for Davi are restrained, worn with a classy dignity.

The hitch for this reviewer in moving from book to musical, is that Dart has had to gloss over things. The character of Cee Cee seems so not a very nice person. It is not her brashness but her self-centered, “it is all about me” attitude that she projects to everyone. Over the course of the show’s two and half hours, Cee Cee bullies her BFF Bertie, humiliates a husband, dumps a boyfriend in the middle of the night without a second thought, and gives not a hoot for those who depend on her for paychecks as back up performers She regularly just says, nope, no performance tonight; leaving others with no money and the audience unhappy. For the most part, Cee Cee comes off as funny and brassy, but selfish with an utterly “me first, I am needy” attitude. That is until the last fifteen minutes.

Bertie, as the character is written, is bound by limiting convention. She is nearly submissive. She trades in an over-bearing mother, a one-dimensional crappy husband, for the overbearing, insecure BFF Cee Cee who needs to be the center of all attention. And then Cee Cee gets to float off as a savior as the play ends.

Perhaps I missed that Cee Cee has some clearly seen, touching vulnerabilities to humanize her beyond two musical numbers. She is her own Momma Rose.

There is so much to enjoy in the acting, singing and technical presentation of Beaches. I was no stranger in a strange land. Yet, as the show ends into a fade, I just couldn’t help but wonder how things would be if we paid a visit to Cee Cee ten years down the line. I hope all would be well not for her so much, but for all those who came into her life and depended on her.

Photo Gallery

Presley Ryan as Little Cee Cee, Brooklyn Shuck as Little Bertie	Beaches Ensemble
Mara Davi as Bertie, Alysha Umphress as Cee Cee and Beaches ensemble	Cliff Samuels as Michael Barron, Mara Davi as Bertie and Alysha Umphress as Cee Cee
Mara Davi as Bertie	Alysha Umphress as Cee Cee
Mara Davi as Bertie and Alysha Umphress as Cee Cee

Photos by Margot I. Schulman

Cast

• Bertie: Mara Davi
• Cee Cee Bloom: Alysha Umphress
• Michael Barron: Clifton Samuels
• John Perry: Matthew Scott
• Leona Bloom: Donna Migliaccio
• Rose White: Helen Hedman
• Young Bertie: Brooklyn Shuck
• Young Cee Cee: Presley Ryan
• Teen Bertie: Maya Bretell 
• Teen Cee Cee: Gracie Jones
• Karen Lewandowski/Nina: Svea Johnson
• Arthur/Melman/Ensemble: Michael Bunce
• Nurse/Ensemble: Bayla Whitten
• Ensemble: Jamie Eacker
• Ensemble: Heather Brorsen
• Ensemble: Davis Hasty
• Ensemble: Dan Manning
• Ensemble: Ryah Nixon
• Ensemble: Robbie Roby

Creative Team

• Director: Eric Schaefer
• Book & Lyrics : Iris Rainer Dart
• Book: Thom Thomas
• Music : David Austin
• Music Director: Gabriel Mangiante
• Choreography : Dan Knechtgest
• Musical Supervisor: Mary Mitchell Campbell
• Orchestrations: Lynne Shankel
• Scenic Design: Derek McLane
• Costume Design: Frank Labovitz
• Lighting Design: Chris Lee
• Sound Design: Lane Elms
• Wig Designer: Elyse Horner
• Production Stage Manager: Kerry Epstein
• Assistant Stage Manager: Stephanie Junkin
• Associate Choreographer: Jessica Hartman
• Assistant Director: Nick Martin

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Is she ever in charge! Have no doubts, Sherri Edelen has put her own brassy, striving take on that ultimate theater mother, Mamma Rose, in Joe Calarco’s interpretation of Gypsy, A Musical Fable at Signature Theatre. Edelen makes quite clear in her song stylizations, her physical presence and a “wearing down” of everything in her path, that she is the domineering hardnosed presence called Momma Rose.

Momma Rose may be self-delusional, but she is a most fascinating character. We know what will ultimately happen, but we want to witness it to see how the magic is accomplished by director Joe Calarco and Edelen. The storyline is set in the 1920s, as the vaudeville circuit is coming to a close as a source of live entertainment. Momma Rose wants to boost her two daughters to childhood stardom. There are plenty of impediments along the way, including the desertion of the talented younger daughter June (Nicole Mangi). What happens next leads to the unexpected creation of famed burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee (Maria Rizzo). But, oh what an absorbing musical journey.

Your writer went back to some of the original writings by Gypsy Rose Lee that later became the fodder for the 1959 musical by Arthur Laurents (book), Jule Styne (music), and Stephen Sondeheim (music and lyrics) and choreography by Jerome Robbins. He located three autobiographical essays written by Gypsy Rose Lee in the 1943 The New Yorker. Here is the first line of the first essay published on April 10, 1943. “Mother’s mind was made up. Her daughters were going to have theatrical careers” wrote Lee.

And then this succinct description of her intrusive mother, “mother was always in the wings, prompting.” wrote Lee. She was “ruthless.” Wow. Speak of a mother-daughter relationship.

Edelen makes it work and seem real. She is yapping constantly, rarely silent. She is a whirlwind; pushing always pushing, from the moment we meet her coming down the theater aisle giving loud stage directions to her young daughters up on the stage where they are auditioning. Edelen will not be stopped with her hell-bent ways. For nearly three hours, the audience witnesses an old-fashioned Broadway tour-de-force lead by a single-minded actor with the necessary energy and purpose.

There is one major obstacle for Momma Rose that Edelen makes sure is not missed. It is a slight stammer of self-doubt as some self- awareness of herself appears. It comes as she is in the middle of the Act II final song, “Rose’s Turn.” A stammer, a little hic-up, of the letter “m” in Momma “M-M-Momma.” It slows her fierceness giving a sense of her vulnerability as she breakdowns pleading “Well, someone tell me, when is it my turn? Don’t I get a dream for myself?”

Calarco, a multi-Helen Hayes recipient has made his vision one of a fast train moving down the tracks gathering speed. Music director Jon Kalbfleisch, with his 11 piece orchestra, leads a spirited, brassy musical attack matching Edelen’s vocal presence. Styne’s musical sense is of kicky vaudeville, and thrusting boosts of a burlesque style that carries the audience along. It is a constant stimulating overdrive of music.

Multiple Helen Hayes awardee James Kronzer developed a set design, with lights by Chris Lee and sound by Lane Elms, that has the audience witnessing the production unfold as if watching a play-within-a-play. There are footlights, curtains, set pieces and props moved by actors into and out of view in brown outs smoothly accompanied by musical snippets.

There is little static in production including the movements choreographed by Karma Camp. Frank Labovitz’s costume design successful in conveys the spirit of the characters; even those who are seen for a moment and then are gone from sight like the newsboys and the farm boys. Edelen is clothed in matronly shirt waist dresses and clunky shoes. But her own full figure comes through conveying a power within.

Anne Nesmith, wig designer, certainly had a great deal to do with the transformation of Louise to Gypsy. She first has Louise in an uncomely brunette, Dutch bob that remains until she is transformed into Gypsy Rose, hair piled up to accentuate her creamy skinned shoulders, cheekbones, and glorious smile.

Maria Rizzo as Louise is effective, yet seems a bit too invisible. Her transformation to become Gypsy Rose Lee seems just too quick. Yet, when she performs “Let Me Entertain You” as the penultimate number, it is as if she grew a foot, became statuesque, maturing into a totally different body. She becomes a sensual tease, like a young new bride on her wedding night, decked out in new lingerie provided by her girl friends at her bridal shower to entice and be admired.

Mitchell Herbert as Herbie is effective as well, as a mousy man who take a long while to finally stand up to Mamma Rose. There is plenty of comic work in this musical family saga. Rather than the three witches of Macbeth we have three strip-tease artists, each with her own heart of gold and her own “gimmick.” They are Sandy Bainum (Tessa Tura, a caring butterfly who is the stimulant in the invention of the stage name Gypsy Rose Lee), Donna Miglaccio (the trumpet playing Mazeppa), and Tracy Lynn Olivera (as a fat suited electric lighted, Electra). Carolyn Cole, in a non-singing role, lights up her scene work as two different characters, Agnes and then Renee, with a way of inflecting her few lines and standing around to be bullied in a way that just draws eyes to her.

As for particular songs that caught your reviewer’s ear. “Some People,” “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and “Rose’s Turn” are each delivered by Edelen with the audience bound to each word and syllable she sings. Her vocal delivery had the audience lean forward not to miss a word, an inflection, or a movement. “Together Wherever We Go” provides a lovely sweetness to the proceedings as the trio of Rose, Herbie and Louise give some hints of truly caring for each other.

And then there is the arc of the show in two songs, “May We Entertain You?” sung by Baby June and Baby Louise with its “may I” type question to the audience, to the penultimate, “Let Me Entertain You” sung by the newly transformed Gypsy. It is a definitive declaration of her new persona. It is the anthem of separation and new birth.

Edelen gives her heart out in her performance as Rose in Gypsy, A Musical Fable. To use a sports analogy, she leaves everything on the field. What more can any audience ever want? We root for that each time we go to the theater. This time, we get it.

Photo Gallery

Vaudeville dreams catch on as Momma Rose (Sherri L. Edelen) gives a pep talk to Baby June (Erin Cearlock)	‘Well, this time, I’m not crying.’ Sherri L. Edelen plays Momma Rose
Momma Rose (Sherri L. Edelen, left) has a dressing room stand-off with Gypsy Rose Lee, aka her daughter Louise (Maria Rizzo)	Louise (Maria Rizzo) gets a surprise birthday present from her stage pals Yonkers, Angie, and L.A. (from left: Samuel Edgerly, Joseph Tudor, and Gannon O’Brien).
Tulsa (Vincent Kempski, right) captures the imagination of Louise (Maria Rizzo) in ‘All I Need Is the Girl.’	Herbie (Mitchell Hebert, right) makes a point clear to Pastey (Steven Cupo) backstage.
‘You Gotta Get a Gimmick’ sing the strippers Mazeppa (Donna Migliaccio), Electra (Tracy Lynn Olivera), and Tessie Tura (Sandy Bainum)	Louise (Maria Rizzo) becomes Gypsy Rose Lee

Photos by Teresa Wood

Cast

• Tessie Tura: Sandy Bainum
• Baby June: Erin Cearlock
• Agnes, Renee, Ensemble: Carolyn Cole
• Uncle Jocko, Weber, Mr. Goldstone, Pastey, Bourgeron-Cochon: Steven Cupo
• Balloon Girl: Grace Doughty
• Rose: Sherri L. Edelen
• George, Yonkers, Ensemble: Samuel Edgerly
• Miss Cratchitt, Marjorie May, Ensemble: Alyssa Gagarin
• Herbie: Mitchell Hébert
• Tulsa: Vincent Kempski
• June, Dance Captain: Nicole Mangi
• Pop, Kringelein, Cigar, Phil: Dan Manning
• Mazeppa: Donna Migliaccio
• Newsboy: Ethan Miller
• L.A. Ensemble: Gannon O’Brien
• Electra: Tracy Lynn Olivera
• Newsboy: John Ray
• Louise: Maria Rizzo
• Baby Louise: Ellen Roberts
• Newsboy: Eli Schulman
• Angie, Ensemble: Joseph Tudor

Creative Team

• Director: Joe Calarco
• Music Director: Jon Kalbfleisch
• Choreographer: Karma Camp
• Scenic Design: Jim Kronzer
• Costume Design: Frank Labovitz
• Lighting Design: Chris Lee
• Sound Design: Lane Elms
• Production Stage Manager: Kerry Epstein

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Fleeting, chance meetings by travelers across the decades of time can spark unexpected reactions. Fear and gloom can be transformed into an unanticipated optimism; doubts and hesitations reduced. This message of the gently moving musical Crossing, created by Matt Conner and Grace Barnes, is one of hope and faith looking to the future. It has a spiritual essence to its outlook.

Through brief verbal “collisions” on a train station platform, it is as if another human being is a destiny-changing angel, quite like Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life ” or Monica in the long running TV series “Touched by an Angel.”

In Crossing Conner (music and lyrics) and Barnes (book), use Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” as a lynch-pin, with its belief that “’tis not too late to seek a newer world.” The well-known last line of “Ulysses” is specifically used in Crossing; “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Conner and Barnes previously co-created the musical Nevermore adapted from writings of Edgar Alan Poe and produced at Signature in 2006.

With a score both of Conner’s ten new songs and one classic gospel tune, Crossing moves across the broad sweep of time and events over the past two centuries. A cast of nine has interwoven encounters from seven time periods representing key moments in American history. There is plenty of dialogue to go along with the score and swelling music to pump up the emotions.

Conner’s lyrics and music are a very effective pastiche of genres; gospel-infused, up-beat soft-rock, as well as subdued ballads. There is little harshness or dissonance. The music direction by Gabriel Mangiante, with her eight piece orchestra underpins the production, rather than overpowering it.

Some Crossing song titles give indications of what their full lyrics with their overall message of hope provide. From the opening full company number “Here I Am,” to “Someone, Something, Somewhere,” “After the Rain” and “Little Miracles” as well as “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and the classic “We Shall Overcome.”

Eric Schaeffer is both Crossing‘s director and scenic designer. He keeps his cast constantly active and moving, sometimes with purpose and sometimes burning nervous energy. The scenic design is simple on the eye; the cast wanders about a rail platform with a two-story clapboard station in the back ground. There is a truncated rail track between audience and set. The lighting by Chris Lee is expressive. When the lighting design (Chris Lee) uses a single color with multiple hues of as violet or rose to bathe the set and characters, there is much added visual pop. The costumes by Kathleen Geldard give plenty of historical visual cues to particular eras as the characters cross time boundaries.

The singing in solos and in the company is impeccable, though your reviewer did wish for some deeper tones in the voices at times. Your eyes and ears stay glued to them as they bring forth the up-lifting lyrics. The cast includes Signature veterans Austin Colby, Florence Lacey, Christopher Mueller, Tracy Lynn Olivera, Nova Y. Paton, Chris Sizemore and Peggy Yates along with newcomers Ines Nassara, a recent graduate of Signature’s Musical Theatre Institute, and John Ray, a Northern Virginia middle school student.

Paton, is the “unknown woman” bringing spirit to the evening. She is one powerhouse voice with hands raised up to Heaven. Her character shadows the others throughout the production. At times she actively intercedes in the happenings as if a messenger from Above. Olivera’s character, a wife in America after WWII, is worn down by her unfulfilled life. She is just mesmerizing in her silences; showing pain, sorrow and despair, as if she has remembered something in her own life.

Sizemore, as a rich man from the Depression era, brings a knowing decency in his interactions with other characters. Lacy, in the role of a woman in the 1970’s, is at times over-done with her annoyance and anger waiting for an expected visit from her daughter. Mueller plays his character, a young backpacker of today, with an engaging liveliness.

The show has its weakness, as most things do. The dialogue can sound too earnest; much like greeting card truckle. The characters meet-up so easily, just by walking around and saying “hi” as an introduction. An individual’s issues and troubles can seem all-too easily cured. This reduces the emotional wallop of the production; things just don’t look hard as interpersonal warmth blunts-out negatives.

Crossing is a cozy, no-intermission 85 minutes with a sentimental Holiday Season sensibility of trust for the future. There is a lovely quietness to it. That things will get better. That is of value at anytime of the year.

Photo Gallery

A quiet train station becomes a place of little miracles	The Civil Rights Marcher (Ines Nassara, left) finds solace in the words of the Unknown Woman (Nova Y. Payton)
A quiet train station becomes a place of little miracles	The Woman in Pink (Tracy Lynn Olivera, right) recalls a distant time and place alongside the Child (John Ray)
The Woman with Flowers (Florence Lacey) anticipates the return of her estranged daughter	A quiet train station becomes a place of little miracles
The Unknown Woman (Nova Y. Payton) endows the train station with a touch of magic	The Wealthy Man (Chris Sizemore) ponders a life-or-death choice under the eye of the Unknown Woman (Nova Y. Payton)

Photos by Teresa Wood

Cast

• Soldier, 1917: Austin Colby
• Woman with Flowers, 1977: Florence Lacy
• Backpacker, 2013: Christopher Mueller
• Civil rights Marcher, 1963: Ines Nassara
• Woman in Pink, 1954: Tracy Lynn Olivera
• Unknown Woman: Nova Y. Payton
• Child 1954: John Ray
• Wealthy Man, 1929: Chris Sizemore
• Mother, 1917: Peggy Yates

Crew

• Book: Grace Barnes
• Music and Lyrics: Matt Conner
• Additional Lyrics: Grace Barnes
• Director: Eric Schaeffer
• Orchestration: August Eriksmoen
• Music Director: Gabriel Mangiante
• Scenic Design: Eric Schaeffer
• Costume Design: Kathleen Geldard
• Lighting Design: Chris Lee
• Sound Design: Lane Elms
• Stage Manager: Kerry Epstein

Musicians

• Keyboard/Conductor: Gabriel Mangiante
• Reeds: Ben Bokor
• Horn: Amy Smith
• Trumpet: Brent Madsen
• Cello: Aron Rider
• Guitar: Gerry Kunkel
• Bass: Bill Hones
• Drums: Paul Keesling

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

“You are only as sick as your secrets” – or so the saying goes. Applying that bit of ancient wisdom to the farce/drama now premiering at Signature Theatre, I would say that playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo’s characters are sick, sick, sick.

I won’t reveal who’s got what syndrome in Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill. That would deflate Colaizzo’s extended parade of not very shocking or even surprising revelations. But setting aside the question of exactly who is into precisely what, we have … let’s see now … two sorts of eating disorder, sexual abuse, incest, sexual secrecy, urinary incontinence, infidelity, use of a legally controlled mood-changing substance and overuse of a legally sanctioned mood-changing substance — not to mention rampant neediness and frustration, obsessive compulsive disorder and willful destruction of everyday household items including (but not limited to) wallboard and breakfast cereal.

Colaizzo’s dramatic setup is sort of four characters in search of a TV sitcom. It has to be admitted that his writing is witty. It is nearly ready for prime time. His dialogue is packed with insult humor, put downs and snappy comebacks. There are even some refreshingly goofy tossed off remarks. One character, refuting an accusation of financial irresponsibility, alleges that he has “enough money to buy a thousand dogs.”

And there is some agile social satire. A character who is accused of being devoid of empathy retorts that she is “processing” and is “entitled” to her “own feelings.”

This woman’s younger son dismisses his mother’s self-improvement educational efforts as dabbling in a “Googleversity.”

Colaizzo’s characters are, as you may have guessed, cartoonish. There’s the fretful mom, the frustrated dad, the clumsy older son and the seething younger son.

Director Michael Kahn (best known as head of D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company) ekes out welcome hints of character development.

As mom, Christine Lahti evolves from intolerant and severely respectable to somewhat accepting of herself, her family and her neighbors. At the top of the show her vocabulary bristles with unexamined expectations based on “should” and “ought.” It’s as if her family members and her house were fashion accessories acquired to flatter her life ensemble. Eventually, mom’s devotion to appearances withers like the prominently displayed bouquet of flowers from her prize-winning garden.

Wayne Duvall, as dad, goes from the conscientious but emotionally frozen provider stereotype to the tentatively adventurous male menopause stereotype.

As the older son, Christopher McFarland tires of pathetic longing for approval and opts for the sort of self-fulfillment that used to be called “personal bliss.”

Anthony Bowden, as the younger son, starts with habitual petulance. If there’s strawberry ice cream he rages at people’s unfeeling disregard for his loathing of strawberry ice cream. Eventually he sets aside grievance collecting and experiences real grief and real affection.

Getting back to the theory that “you’re only as sick as your secrets,” one might conclude that Colaizzo’s family is all better by the end of Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill. It would seem that they no longer have any secrets. But I wouldn’t bet on their future as wholesome exemplars of mental health and hygiene.

And yet … and yet … I did laugh a lot as mom, dad, older brother and younger brother stumbled and bumbled from denial to cringing to surrender.

As for that clunky title, Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill — it refers to an affluent Atlanta suburb. Colaizzo, who is in his late 20s, actually grew up in an Atlanta suburb called The Falls of Autry Mill. Note the lack of an “e” in that Autry, which distinguishes the actual from the fictional. The real Falls of Autry Mill (judging from its web site) appears to be an array of McMansions selling for just under a million dollars. Several of them are, or have been, in foreclosure.

The setting for Colaizzo’s farcical drama has all the material fixings of the well-known American Dream and most of the defects that precipitate the well-known American Disillusionment. In its jocular way, Autrey Mill updates dour American themes explored by Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill.

Last year Signature Theatre premiered Collaizzo’s tightly focused drama Really Really, which dealt with the tribulations of privileged 20-somethings. It was well-received at Signature and, later, in New York. Really Really, like Autrey Mill, presented the good life as really really not so great.

Cast

• Carly: Christine Lahti
• Chad: Anthony Bowden
• Tommy: Christopher McFarland
• Louie: Wayne Duvall
• Understudies
  • Chad: Elliott Kashner
  • Tommy: Tobin Moss

Creative Team

• Playwright: Paul Owns Colaizzo
• Director: Michael Kahn
• Scenic Design: James Noone
• Costume Design: Frank Labovitz
• Lighting Design: Andrew Scharwath
• Sound and Composition Design: Palmer Hefferan
• New York Casting CSA: Laura Stanczyk
• Production Stage Manager: Julie Meyer
• Assistant Direction: Walter Ware II
• Associate Artistic Director: Matthew Gardiner
• Director of Production: Michael D. Curry

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Shivers. Signature Theatre’s revamped production of the usually massively scaled 1991 Tony Award winning musical Miss Saigon is remarkable. It places the audience into the midst of the chaos of the long-ago Vietnam War fought by initially fresh-faced young men who lived moment to moment trying to get an adrenaline rush before going back in-country to risk their lives.

Eric Schaefer’s re-imagined mounting of Miss Saigon is one of closeness. Emotions and intimacy rule, rather than the physical rendering say of a helicopter in the physically bigger stage productions that many may remember. The set design by Adam Koch takes the audience into the humid far away even before the curtain rises. The audience is further immersed into this journey by Matt Rowe’s detailed sound designer and Chris Lee’s lighting.

This Miss Saigon begins as young soldiers seek out human connections when any moment can be their last. This Miss Saigon is about finding a safer world for yourself and your child while maintaining some morality when it seems just impossible. This Miss Saigon is about doing anything to try to reach a better place…trying to come to America.

But first some words of bias from this reviewer. This is written by someone who was a 24-year old Air Force intelligence officer in the early 1970’s, stationed in the Far East. This production, like iconic Vietnam-related movies such as “Platoon,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The Deer Hunter” or the television show “China Beach” is seen through a very personal standard. It may not be yours.

For some of a certain age this Miss Saigon may bring back those grainy images. For others, it can put you closer to a chaotic world, sung by actors with rich clear voices, with superlative choreography and a set with splendid renderings. This production is backed by a high-velocity orchestra that moved effortlessly from pulsating rock to the softly heated glow of love’s simmer.

As many know, the original lead actor was taken ill; replaced at the last moment. That adds to the marvel of what Schaeffer and his 17-member cast pulled-off. His concepts withstood the unexpected loss of the original male lead. This is an achievement. But, the male lead change may have reduced some of the nuanced human drama, and the heart-felt, emotional depictions in the on-stage love relationship that comprise the center of the show.

Ok now, a quick slimmed down synopsis of Miss Saigon in its time and place. First it is an adaptation in its own way of Puccini’s 1904 opera Madame Butterfly. Music is by Claude-Michel Schonberg with lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Malthy, Jr. It is one of the longest running musicals in Broadway history.

It is now April 1975, the Vietnam War is winding down. The Fall of Saigon with the last helicopter out of the city is imminent. There is still some life to be led by the remaining U.S Marines.

The Marines go off to a usual haunt; “Dreamland” managed by the “Engineer” (duly slimy Thom Sesma), a French-Vietnamese man. One of the Marines, a reluctant visitor to the club, is Chris (a too coolly composed, well-scrubbed, Gannon O’Brien). He soon finds himself head over heels in love with a seventeen-year-old orphan named Kim (sweet, vulnerable, strong voiced Diana Huey). There are also appearances by Thuy (a bit one-dimensional Christopher Mueller) and John, a Marine who later becomes a saver of street children, (played by a sympathetic and man of “some weight,” Chris Sizemore).

The musical takes us back-and-forth through the fall of Vietnam, the separation of Kim and Chris, Chris’s life in the United States as a newly married man to Ellen (Ellen Driscoll), a re-connection with Kim a few years later and Chris’s first meeting with his son when back in South East Asia. As often in life, the ending is bittersweet.

From the first number to the last in this little dialogue, sung-through over 30 song score, the atmospherics are well constructed. Even the crackling of some metal grates becomes a musical enhancement. Whether a song is high-heat (“The Heat is On in Saigon”), soft hazy love (“Sun and Moon”), masculine bravado (“The American Dream”), unexpected sweetness (“Dju Vui Vai”), political statement (“The Morning of the Dragon”) or the confusion of an American wife (the première of a new song, “Maybe”), and the utter devotion of lovers Kim and Chris (“I Still Believe”) the audience is treated to a head-spinning range of songs, backed by a pumped-up 15-piece orchestra conducted by Gabriel Manginate.

The choreography by Karma Camp, let me say this, having visited some “clubs” while looking for my troops to make sure they made it back to base; is quite what I recall. The gyrations, the legs swung open and wide, the bottoms moving in ways not thought possible; Camp and her dancers got it right. They do it raw and rough and real. Everyone wants to feel alive, Camp understands that.

Oh, that aforementioned helicopter production number. In this Miss Saigon there is a climb up an unsteady rope ladder accompanied by the whirling whoosh of propeller blades. It is an ascent from Hell. Those left are slowly pinned together in a chained-linked fence corral ever and ever tighter, their screams drowned out and as they look up, left behind. To face life to come. Quite something to say the least.

Miss Saigon is a close-up exploration of love, war and culture’s clashing. The Vietnam War is now nearly 40 years past when the real last helicopter left Saigon. Newer conflicts await being musicalized, as they will be when the time come. In the meantime, go see Miss Saigon for many reasons; including the way it captures the essence of a time and place and its overall gutsiness.

Photo Gallery

Thom Sesma plays the French-Vietnamese club owner who refers to himself as The Engineer	American GI Chris (Gannon O’Brien, left) and Vietnamese bargirl Kim (Diana Huey) find love during wartime
Chris’s American wife Ellen (Erin Driscoll) comforts him on their long journey	The residents of Ho Chi Minh City seek safety
A warm welcome from the girls of Dreamland (from left: Tamara Young, Katie Mariko Murray, Cheryl Daro, Diana Huey, Eunice Bae)	The cast of ‘Miss Saigon’ welcomes you to Bangkok
American GI Chris (Gannon O’Brien, left) speaks with a Marine (James Gardiner)

Photos by Christopher Mueller

Cast

• Kim: Diana Huey
• Chris: Gannon O’Brien
• Engineer: Thom Sesma
• Ellen: Erin Driscoll
• John: Chris Sizemore
• Thuy: Christopher Mueller
• Gigi: Cheryl Daro
• Ensemble: Eunice Bae, Stephen Gregory Smith, James Gardiner, Vincent Kempski, Kevin Kulp, Matthew Hirsch, Katie Mariko Murray, Ryan Sellers, Nicholas Yenson, Tamara Young

Designers

• Directed by Eric Schaeffer
• Choreographer Karma Camp
• Music Director Gabe Mangiante
• Scenic Design Adam Koch
• Costume Design Frank Labovitz
• Lighting Design Chris Lee
• Sound Design Matt Rowe
• Wig Design Anne Nesmith
• Production Stage Manager Kerry Epstein

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Kelly and Peter have each lost their other half: Kelly, her husband, Craig; Peter, his identical twin brother, Craig. It seems that Craig’s death in Iraq was not in combat. Later it will come out that Craig committed suicide during a target training exercise. If this seems a spoiler, it is impossible to critique this impractical effort by a recognized contemporary playwright without taking him to task for his lack of due diligence in crafting an accurate story and betraying a spoiler to clarify the point.

Dying City by Christopher Shinn makes its Washington, D.C. area première at The ARK at Signature Theatre. This peek behind closed doors purportedly studies the effects of a foreign war perpetrated on and by the upper middle class; but really its composition is the result of a marketing effort demanding the writing of made to measure characters for the specific audience that will pay outrageous and inflated ticket (never mind the punishing service charges on the ticket sales) prices for a one hour live episode of yuppie melodrama. That being said, this play is good because of sublime performances by Thomas Keegan and Rachel Zampelli. Though Zampelli seems to err on the kvetchy side as an actress, here the kvetch works for her as her life descends into bathos when her air sucking brother-in-law shows up unannounced on the evening of the anniversary of her husband’s death in the Iraq War.

Is there no one who hasn’t gone to Harvard?!!! Every contemporary story today is about H-bombs and their icky lives. Who cares? In real life everyone wants to go to Harvard because it is believed that a Harvard degree is a ticket to a golden life and the tschotschkes to trick it out. In theatre and literature H-bomb status just means that life descends into Job like misery so the 47% mooching class can have its exercise in schadenfreude. It is, after all, H-bomb economists and finance experts idolizing at the fount of the University of Chicago who broke the country in 2008; near or before the time that this play takes place. Kelly (Zampelli) and husband, Craig (Keegan) are H-bombs on the road to the golden ticket. Kelly is a most unlikely therapist in that she needs to get therapy more than she needs to offer it. Craig was a Faulkner scholar on the road to a doctorate. So, how does he end up in Iraq? The storyline is to have him participate in ROTC in order to be able to afford Harvard after which he is obliged to serve in the army in order pay back ROTC for his education. However, Harvard booted ROTC off the campus during the Vietnam War and only invited it back in 2012. The only way Craig could have participated in ROTC would have been by ambling east on Massachusetts Avenue to the other game in town, MIT. This may be a minor point, but it’s indicative of the laziness in constructing this narrative because Harvard’s antipathy to any endeavor defense related reaches back more than four decades in the recent past. This is not classified information. Because Harvard is a needs blind institution with an endowment that can support a medium-sized nation, it can bear the cost on its own to support a Faulkner scholar’s dissertation because this country is in great need of more of them. This play would have more credence and drama if Kelly and Craig just attended highly regarded unnamed universities and the sadness would resonate with an audience that actually wants to sympathize with the plight of these people. There can be no sympathy for this lot as they’re written because the back story inspires either envy or derision, not sympathy. If I went to Harvard I could be miserable in that great apartment too. However, maybe sympathy is not intended; in which case, never mind and please disregard this last paragraph.

The setup really focuses on Peter (also Keegan), who shows up at Kelly’s door late at night. Whereas Craig was an upright, most straight arrow sort of guy, Peter is a mincing and fey Peter Pan actor breathlessly prattling on about how handsome everyone thinks he is and how famous he is. It is certain he is famous because he declines to go talk to his younger lover’s students because his presence in the school would just disrupt everything and he would waste everyone’s day basking in his reflected star light signing autographs and posing for pictures with God and everyone. Peter is in New York now because he is a principal in a currently running hit show. We can tell it’s New York because the set is recycled from God of Carnage, another Signature Theatre show about self-absorbed New Yorkers. Anyway, Peter just broke up with one male lover because he was still carrying on with the previous lover and now a fellow cast member is seen fellating Peter backstage between scenes and Peter is in deep sh*t and he doesn’t know what to do so he walks off the play between acts and shows up unannounced at Kelly’s so he can force TMI on her. How conceited is that? Which is precisely the point of the show: Peter’s conceit and his inability to consider anyone else and Craig’s enabling of his twin brother’s vanities, even in death.

Kelly and Peter are mourning the perfect Craig, but Craig devolves into more and greater imperfection as the two survivors remember him. Kelly is desultory throughout her scenes with Peter. It is supposed to seem that she is mourning the anniversary of Craig’s death, but her purposelessness is repeated in the flashbacks of her life with Craig before he deployed and it becomes apparent that their marriage failed them both upon saying, “I do.” Kelly really stopped mourning on the evening she was apprised of Craig’s death and her life only took on meaning at that moment, because widowhood, in this case, became liberation with survivor benefits. Craig and Peter are really two sides of the same coin and Peter’s insistence on barging back into Kelly’s life just as she is embarking upon a new life altogether sends her over the edge into self-awareness of history repeating itself and it is most satisfying, indeed, when she throws him out and resumes packing up her things to move far away. There is a whole lot of in and out door activity as Keegan goes through to quick change between Peter and Craig. He is superb as he changes his mien between the two distinctly different men of the same face and body. Keegan and Zampelli spend the hour in a Sanford Meisner technique repetition exercise moment facing and reacting to one another whether Keegan is Craig or he is Peter. This is very compelling; which is why the Harvard and ROTC shtick is so egregious; it’s just not necessary to illustrate the essential characters of the principals. Kelly didn’t deserve either Craig or Peter because she was better than both of them and the two men spend their time together in one body punishing Kelly for this. The Iraq War is not essential to Craig’s death and imbues it with no more meaning than if Craig had just jumped into a grain silo containing some esoteric heirloom kernel grown for and sold to Harvard graduates in New York City. Either way, he has died and Kelly’s life can begin because both Craig and Peter were nullifying her. In order to craft made to measure characters for the creative class the playwright must have felt that he had to indulge this privileged audience by pretending to larger meaning by commingling its one percent characters with the plight of the left behind for whom the United States Armed Forces and its adventures may be the only future. Aren’t we all one hundred percenters now? But, in the end, the story of the characters, exclusive of the war details, is compelling on its face and Keegan and Zampelli are masterful in their collective presentation. All that can be said about Director Matthew Gardiner, after reading his meshuganah Director’s note, is that he knows what he’s doing as a director even if he’s describing an entirely different play than the one being presented here.

The sardonic reality is that the United States as a nation no longer goes to war. Certain strata of the population deploy and engage in some President’s foolish adventure while everyone else falls into cynical self-satisfaction and gets its news from Jon Stewart. There is no longer any collective suffering in war. Most of us don’t even realize that our nation is at war and certainly there is no equality of war deprivations small or large or even at all. The last bout of collective suffering produced such euphoria at its official end that the most iconic photograph of that age is now being written about as a potential sexual assault by over privileged snarks whose worst life experience was getting a B in middle school science. How have we come to this; and is this an advancement for civilization or a throwback to a prior age when it was expected that the haves would plunder the have-nots when they weren’t using them for cannon fodder? Playwright Shinn is commendably looking for something larger than one percent privilege to drive the detachment of the principals but he errs in its execution by getting the small details wrong. Privileged Presidential candidate H-bomb John Kerry volunteered for action in Vietnam, was wounded, earned decorations and awards for valor and got himself libeled by the same madcap adventurers that assured Craig’s death in Iraq. Privileged Presidential candidate H-bomb Willard Mitt Romney took a military deferment from Vietnam on religious grounds and spent that war living in a château and bicycling around France trying to evangelize the French to forswear their wine, coffee and Gauloise’s. He campaigns for executive office on a platform that includes rattling swords at nations that want no part of a war with the United States because he has not been to war. People like him no longer have to fight and neither does the audience for this show. That’s the play that needs to be written; custom fit for the audience for whom war is a news report and not a daily fact of life. Shinn can do it because he can convey the distress and nightmare that war wreaks on its combatants, but Dying City is not that play.

Director’s Note

Christopher Shinn’s intimate story feels perfect at this time and for the ARK Theatre. Shinn is a playwright whose stories take place behind closed doors and are deeply private-but he is able to explore these intimate stories within the context of the vast, messy and uncontrollable outside world.

In Dying City, Shinn is exploring the idea of War; not just the wars fought by countries with guns, but the wars fought in our own homes. He is specifically looking at the violence that hides in our everyday lives, the violence that we inflict on those we love-while ingeniously setting this idea against the much larger backdrop of the Iraq War. While today this war may seem to be dying out, it is a war that we are still dealing with on a deeply personal level-one that may be hard for many of us to recognize. Shinn poses fascinating questions about what make us inherently violent; what deep-rooted parts of our history, both personally and as Americans, shape our personal acts of violence and betrayal-and at the same time how violence is at our core as human beings.

Photo Gallery

Kelly (Rachel Zampelli) tries to connect with her husband Craig (Thomas Keegan) on his last night before deployment	Rachel Zampelli stars as Kelly
Peter (Thomas Keegan) and Kelly (Rachel Zampelli) see each other for the first time since Craig’s funeral	Kelly (Rachel Zampelli) and Craig (Thomas Keegan) on the night before his deployment to Iraq
Thomas Keegan stars as twin brothers Peter and Craig	Having not spoken since Craig’s funeral, Kelly (Rachel Zampelli) and Peter (Thomas Keegan) face-off in a passive-aggressive battle rooted in half-truths and betrayal
Peter (Thomas Keegan) shares his late twin brother’s emails with his sister-in-law Kelly (Rachel Zampelli)	Kelly (Rachel Zampelli) listens as Peter (Thomas Keegan) remembers his twin brother Craig

Photos by Scott Suchman

Cast

• Kelly: Rachel Zampelli
• Peter/Craig: Thomas Keegan

Production Staff

• Director: Matthew Gardiner
• Production Stage Manager: Julie Meyer
• Director of Production: Michael D. Curry
• Scenic Design: Daniel Conway
• Costume Design: Frank Labovitz
• Lighting Design: Colin K. Bills
• Sound Design: Matt Rowe
• Original Music: Peter Lerman

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

A flock of semi dressed prostitutes, hordes of bare-tushied men, foul-mouthed Sheriff, foul-mouthed everyone, corrupt politicians and a madam more cultured and elegant than Mrs. John F. Kennedy. This is the most clean and wholesome story I’ve ever seen. Signature Theatre and Director Eric Schaeffer bring on hoots and hollers and Texas Two Steppin’; plain Texan speak and big hair; but the magic isn’t there. This show is so clean one wonders why Miss Mona and her ladies even have repeat clientele. I’m sure the regulars could get their wives to hand wash their schmeckels if only they would ask. The exhilarating temptations of The Chicken Ranch are just not here.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas represents a Texas past never to be recaptured. The closing of Edna’s Fashionable Ranch Boarding House aka The Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas augured in a new age devoid of small “c” christianity and its attendant virtues of kindness and generosity of spirit. The contrived scandal surrounding the uproar over an establishment conducting trade since 1844 symbolizes the coming of age of media personalities as ambitious for stardom as the subjects they covered. The rise of corporate upper case religion and publicly held media companies created an intellectual servility of a citizenry with too much time and money on its hands. We all might be better off if we had somewhere to go instead of staying in and watching corporate news sensationalize us into closing down respectable establishments….Muslim Community Centers in Manhattan, anyone? In Texas, corporate religion and its money base have created a small-minded and mean-spirited ethos presented for our edification on C-SPAN and cable television news every day. Writers Larry L. King and Peter Masterson captured this devolution of communal forbearance and Carol Hall composed the music and lyrics portraying a moment in time when the world really did turn.

It all starts in the fictional town of Gilbert, Texas, a mostly peaceful place overseen by an Andy Griffith type Sheriff (Thomas Adrian Simpson) with a kind and practical heart. Now, I am not advancing prostitution as a viable career path; nor am I saying that outside of city limits brothels are the kinds of entrepreneurial endeavors society should encourage. I am just recognizing that there was a time not so long ago when women had only two lifestyle choices: wife or whore. And that is what this show is about: the latter women, for whom respectability was not necessarily denied if they comported themselves like ladies. Our small “c” christianity does not permit us to entertain judgment against anyone else.

Miss Mona (Sherri L. Edelin) runs a fine establishment with clean and healthy ladies and a kind understanding of humanity. She does well by doing good in her mind and her humanity is bolstered by her less than optimal origins. She can afford to be kind. Her ladies are women who choose to be there because that is all life seemingly had to offer them if they were to survive. Second wave feminism didn’t arise from nowhere. Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd (Simpson) acquiesces to the renegade business outside his city limits because it does not create more problems than it solves and he loves Miss Mona, although he never realizes that. Plus, the place has always been there. They are all done in by the loudmouth, sensation seeking Melvin P. Thorpe (Christopher Bloch), a Houston TV newsman looking for a scandal wherever he can conjure one up. The Thorpe character is based on KTRK-TV reporter Marvin Zindler, a man so large in life and his television persona that no amount of overacting can replicate the real thing. The real Zindler’s overarching need for attention and his Jewish religion made for some heady Texas news forty years ago when good-natured Texans everywhere could plausibly deny what wasn’t in their faces every night at 6:00 P.M. In Texas, Zindler was a name synonymous with all of the other great Jewish merchants of the era that established Texas as the most finely dressed state in the union. Marvin Zindler was already known for his name and outrageous family story before he discovered investigative reporting.

The set is dull and the show tedious until the Aggies show up. That number with all these fine young men and their naked tushies dancing and whooping up a storm sets the audience up for the raid which is well executed and show stopping. Edelin’s performance as Miss Mona is sweet and sympathetic. She is a sound businesswoman, but not a shark. She has a conscience and a capacity for love and loyalty. Nova Y. Payton as Jewel is strong in vocals and presence as Miss Mona’s house manager and Simpson steals the show as the sheriff caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, no pun intended.

The ladies in this show don’t require sympathy, but Angel (Erin Driscoll) is going home to her son and to start anew without relying on her body to make her living. Shy (Madeline Botteri), on the other hand, is rescued because she can make her way with her body. Tracy Lynn Olivera, as Doatsy Rae, conveys a wistful regret over her respectability as the counter girl at the diner serving up breakfast for pennies while her contemporaries outside of town serve up the other thing for dollars. There are some organic truths that no amount of self-righteous bleating can contradict. The male ensemble is superb with great vocals and splendid dancing by choreographer Karma Camp; and the local townsmen (Stephen F. Schmidt, Dan Manning, Matt Conner) fight communism via sufferance of the happy establishment in business since 1844.

The set is dark and foreboding, yet practical. Fans are turning and the bright lights against the dark rooms are attractive. The scene changes are speedy and well understood and the shootin’and hootin’ are well designed to startle but not induce cardiac arrest. This show induces a longing for a time when we were more tolerant of our friends and neighbors and we lived and let live.

Signature presents a good show, but not a great one. However, it succeeds in its most important burden: reminding us all of a time when we all could show mercy and love without qualification.

Photo Gallery

Angel (Erin Driscoll) mourns leaving the Chicken Ranch during ‘Hard Candy Christmas.’	Christopher Bloch stars as the crusading television watchdog Melvin P. Thorpe
Dan Manning dances ‘The Sidestep’ as the Texan governor	Miss Mona (Sherri L. Edelen, left) and Jewel (Nova Y. Payton) tell each other ‘No Lies’
Miss Mona (Sherri L. Edelen, right) welcomes Shy (Madeline Botteri) to the Chicken Ranch	The Aggie Boys (Davis Hasty, Benjamin Horen, Vincent Kempski, Stephen Gregory Smith)
The girls. Back row: Amy McWilliams, Nadia Harika, Maria Rizzo, Brianne Camp; from left to right, middle row: Nora Palka, Tamara Young; bottom row: Jamie Eacker	Thomas Adrian Simpson (as Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd) and Sherri L. Edelen (as Miss Mona Stangley)

Photos by Scott Suchman

Cast

• Edsel Mackey: Stephen F. Schmidt
• Angel: Erin Driscoll
• Shy: Madeline Botteri
• Jewel: Nova Y. Payton
• Miss Mona Stangley: Sherri L. Edelin
• Linda Lou: Nora Palka
• Dawn: Nadia Harika
• Ginger: Amy McWilliams
• Beatrice: Tamara Young
• Ruby Rae: Jamie Eacker
• Eloise: Maria Rizzo
• Durla: Brianne Camp
• Melvin P. Thorpe: Christopher Block
• The Dogettes: Jamie Eacker, Nadia Harika, Davis Hasty, Ben Horen, David C. Jennings, Nora Palka, Stephen Gregory Smith, Tamara Young
• Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd: Thomas Adrian Simpson
• CJ Scruggs: Dan Manning
• Mayor Rufus Poindexter: Matt Conner
• Doatsy Rae: Tracy Lynn Olivera
• Senator Wingwoah: Matt Conner
• Aggie Boys: Matt Conner, Jay Adriel, Davis Hasty, Benjamin Horen, David C. Jennings, Vincent Kempski, Gannon O’Brien, Stephen Gregory Smith
• Governor: Dan Manning

Production Staff

• Director: Eric Schaeffer
• Music Director: Gabriel Mangiante
• Choreographer: Karma Camp
• Director of Production: Michael D. Curry
• Production Stage Manager: Kerry Epstein
• Scenic Design: Collin Ranney
• Costume Design: Kathleen Geldard
• Lighting Design: Colin K. Bills
• Sound Design: Matt Rowe

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.