Tag Archives: Jill Bloede

Old Barn’s “Orient Express” Is a Clue-ful Poirot Treat

Review: Murder on the Orient Express at Theatre Charlotte

By Perry Tannenbaum

We can thank the Brits for the notion that passenger trains should run with absolute timeliness and precision. Now that Ken Ludwig’s meticulous adaptation has opened at the Queens Road Barn, we can also thank Agatha Christie, Britain’s most avidly read mystery writer, for her Murder on the Orient Express. Layer on Jill Bloede’s bubbly direction – and dialect coaching – and the treacherous trip rattles along with a savory continental flavor.

That soupçon of glitter and effervescence is greatly enhanced by Theatre Charlotte artistic director Chris Timmons’ fleet and fluid set design, an art deco wonder that transitions delightfully from an Istanbul hotel to a smoky train depot to the luxe interiors of the Orient Express. Since the landscape and snowscape outside the legendary train are also moodily conveyed by projections, it’s difficult to draw a precise borderline between Timmons’ scenic exploits and his lighting design.

While the paucity of professional theatre companies in the QC continues to account for the plethora of professional-grade acting talent we behold at the Barn, so does the opportunity to appear in opulent costumes such as those designed by Sophie Carlick – for hotel waiters, train conductors, and various glitterati who can afford a first-class sleeping compartment on a luxury transcontinental train.

Speed is beneficial in a murder mystery, especially as it plods along, contrary to real life, when we’re introduced to a multitude of suspects who have sufficient motive to commit the cold-blooded crime. Anyone who grew up watching the Perry Mason series on TV (or has binged on it more recently) knows the classic drill: the murder victim antagonizes a slew of enemies. So many enemies that we’re unsure who might have done the deed and more than mildly uncaring about the victim, no matter how brutally they were killed.

Ludwig admirably singles out our obnoxious victim-to-be and all the antagonisms he can spark while introducing us to Christie’s heroic protagonists, Constantine Bouc, owner of the Orient Express line, and peerless detective Hercule Poirot. There will be debate about Bloede’s decision to shitcan Poirot’s mustache wax and twirls in favor of a more conventional groom, but Brandon Samples’ initial entrance as the Belgian is star quality.

There’s a bit of aristocracy to Samples’ bearing that allows Poirot to fit in with his fellow passengers, including a princess, a countess, and a colonel. While Timothy Hager zestfully cements his repulsiveness as Samuel Ratchett, it’s also important for us to see that Poirot has sufficient dignity, discernment, and assets to reject Ratchett’s crass job offer.

Poirot also offers Samples a few brief episodes of befuddlement, for the culprit he is hunting leaves a blizzard of clues.

Unlike all of those complacent Perry Mason victims destined for the morgue and a court-ordered autopsy, Ratchett is keenly aware that he is being hunted. He’s willing to retain Poirot for a fabulous amount of money to protect him. Perry, you’ll remember, doesn’t arrive on the scene until after the wrong suspect is accused and arraigned. Here, Poirot is directly involved while the victim is alive. So when Samples shows no guilt or remorse for not accepting Ratchett’s offer after he is murdered, we’ll need further reasons for despising the playboy.

Christie piles them on and, in doing so, makes the bizarre solution to her mystery more plausible, for Ratchett is far more monstrous than he first seems to be.

Yet the elegance, hauteur, and glamor of the leading ladies would seem to instantly eliminate them from suspicion – or any close acquaintance with the vulgar victim. To think that Paula Baldwin as the Russian Princess Dragomiroff would deign to inflict eight stab wounds on the repellent Ratchett seems like sacrilege.

Likewise, Julia Howard as the serene and mysterious Countess Helena Andrenyi from Hungary seems worlds away from the slain playboy. The ethereal Gretchen McGinty as English governess Mary Debenham, also a smashing beauty, seems to live in an entirely different sphere, more involved with Scottish Colonel Arbuthnot (Ben Allen with a brash brogue) than the slain American.

As for Kathryn Stamas, as an esteemed actress traveling under the assumed name of Helen Hubbard, she is sufficiently brash, loudmouthed, and inconsiderate for us to worry whether Ratchett, trying to get some sleep next door and stewing with rage, will burst into her room and murder her. Murdering him would ruin her delight in riling him with her late-night singing.

However laudable it might be to murder Ratchett, three acts of God will prevent the ghoulish plan from eluding discovery: the unexpected arrival on board of legendary unraveller Hercule Poirot, the serendipitous intervention of Orient Express owner Constantine Bouc in securing a first-class compartment for Poirot, adjacent to the victim’s room. After these pieces are in place, with Bouc ready to serve as Poirot’s loyal sidekick, comes the fortuitous storm that halts the regal train in a snowbank out in the wilderness, giving Poirot sufficient time to investigate.

Bouc is obviously a key prong in Christie’s plotcraft, allowing Poirot to board the Orient Express and vesting him with the authority to investigate. Otherwise, our mustachioed sleuth wouldn’t be able to scan all our suspects’ passports or rummage through their luggage. Dramatically, he enables Poirot to interview all the suspects, another ritual of the mystery genre, corresponding to Perry Mason cross-examinations, that cries out for swift pacing.

The venerable Dennis Delamar would seem ideal for bestowing the requisite bonhomie on our gracious host and eager sidekick, except… for all his wholesome triumphs as Henry Higgins, Grandpa Vanderhoff, Kris Kringle, John Adams, Hucklebee, Jacob the Patriarch, and many more, has he ever done a French accent before? Maybe that was the question Delamar was asking himself on opening night when he uncharacteristically stumbled over a few of his opening lines.

Even for a semi-pro like me, those are lines you should be able to say in your sleep. Of course, Double D never broke character during his difficulties, so to neophytes in the audience, it may have seemed like the garrulous pensioner was stumbling over his English. Delamar’s imperturbability in this brief crisis only made Bouc more charming when he righted himself – and real panic was safely in reserve when the unsolved murder, right under his nose, threatened the image and prestige of his company.

Bouc also serves as a buffer between Poirot and the petty annoyances presented by our suspects, allowing Delamar to display his comedic chops. Samples, on the other hand, gets to revel in flipping over innocent façade after innocent façade in revealing the secret underbellies of his artful gallery of suspects. The parade of skeletons emerging from closets can’t help but add to our merriment.

So most of the actors on stage need to be adept not only in erecting their respective façades, but also in carrying off those deliciously satisfying moments when they are so disconcertingly exposed. Joshua Brand as Ratchett’s querulous secretary seems particularly innocent and above suspicion, while Emma Brand as the Princess’s trembling missionary ward is even further above. So pleasant when they fall.

Climb aboard this fatal train, and you’re likely to find the ride more fun than you expect.

Hohenstein Gets Greedier in His Second Go-Round With “Peter and the Starcatcher”

Review: Peter and the Starcatcher at Matthews Playhouse

By Perry Tannenbaum

July 12, 2025, Matthews, NC – Though their names are similar and they’ve both written about Peter Pan, the temperamental gap between James M. Barrie and Dave Barry would seem to be as wide as oceans. Barrie created Peter in 1904 as an embodiment of eternal youth and the spirit of noble adventure. A century after Peter made his stage debut (played by a woman, of course), Barry teamed up with Ridley Pearson to write a novel-length prequel, Peter and the Starcatchers, keeping the non-fantasy base of the story in Victorian England while snatching Neverland from up among the stars and plopping it down on an earthly ocean.

What Rick Elice seems to have done, in returning the Barry-Pearson preteen page-turner to its stage origins, is to worshipfully replicate all the seagoing pirate action of Starcatchers along with Barry’s choicest quips. Then to supercharge the effect, Elice seems to concentrate it all so that it flies by in a blizzardy blur, all the more frenetic because scenery is stripped so bare – people become doors, ropes become ocean waves, and flag streamers are crocodile teeth – that we’re exercising sizable hunks of imagination to fill out what’s actually happening before our eyes.

Barrie fairies were jubilantly diced and desecrated by Barry’s mischief and mirth: or so it seemed the first three times I saw Elice’s Peter and the Starcatcher – on Broadway, on tour, and at Theatre Charlotte, directed by Jill Bloede. Having read Barry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning humor pieces for decades, I was so sure of my familiarity with America’s beloved joke-and-quip machine that I never bothered to read a single page of his Starcatchers. My naïve conclusion was that Elice had simply let the Barrie-Barry mashup work its magic with as little intervention – and budget – as possible.

My fourth encounter with Starcatcher at Matthews Playhouse, once again directed by Bloede, helped to enlighten me. In her previous work with the script, the evanescence of the budding relationship between Peter and Molly Aster – and the poignancy of their parting – felt more touching to me than previously. That’s significant compensation for anyone who adores Barrie’s original story, whose magic can seem drowned in humor, wit, and shtick when first encountering Starcatcher.

This time around at Matthews Playhouse, another thematic thread struck me for the first time: Elice’s orphaned Peter reaches puberty without ever having a first or last name. By now, it will only come with his consent. At the other end of the moral spectrum, Black Stache has been searching throughout his pirate career for a hero antagonist who will perpetuate his fame.

So their first grand meeting and tussle have biblical Israel-Angel proportions and consequences, or Robin Hood-Little John echoes if you prefer a secular, literary parallel. Two combatants become permanently linked and one of them emerges with a new name. Bloede’s staging here, when Peter gets his name from Stache – and later when Pan is added on – brought a new aura to those moments.

That’s what sent me to the web in search of Barry-Pearson’s actual text. Elice’s wit and humor seemed to chime with the belly laughs Barry’s newspaper columns repeatedly deliver. But is the class clown who grew up no less jokey truly capable of such yiddishe flavor and mythic depth? My suspicions were confirmed in the very first sentence of Barry’s saga: it already includes Peter’s name! An even more amazing revelation awaits if we read on. The jokey Barry tone we know and love is nowhere to be found in the opening chapters we can sample at Amazon. Instead, Barry and Pearson were following along on the dark gallows humor path that Lemony Snicket had pioneered with his Series of Unfortunate Events books for kids.

Deep breath. In my previous reviews of Starcatcher, I repeatedly gave Barry too much credit and blame for what I had seen and much too little to Elice. Both the jokiness and the mythic dimensions of Starcatcher can be credited to Elice – with additional bravos for how thoroughly he convinces us that this is how Barry would tell the origin story of Peter Pan.

Meanwhile, community theatre in Davidson, Charlotte, and Matthews continue to reap the dubious benefit of having so little professional-grade theatre in the Queen City. What a cast Bloede has assembled! Before the show began, representatives from the North Carolina Theatre Conference presented artistic director Sarah Bumgardner with their Theatre of the Year Award for 2024. So the folks backstage with their costumes on, waiting overtime for the ceremonies to conclude, were obviously under extra pressure to deliver. Even Bloede was nervous!

No matter how good your cast is, there’s plenty of stage business to be nervous about in running Starcatcher.Actors must move all the props and furniture around and keep track of all the many Yvette Moten costumes they must find and change in and out of as we move from a London dock to two sailing ships to a faraway island with a beach, a mountain, and a jungle. Stage manager Jessie Hull had to be preternaturally adept. Molly must float in the air. Peter and some nameless alley cat must fly. A lot going on while the quips shoot out at us, many of them newly minted to mock Myers Park and nearby country clubs.

Nearly all of these players were newcomers to Starcatcher, beginning with Joshua Brand as Peter and Emma Brand as Molly, presumably arriving on the Fullwood Theater stage with ready-made chemistry. Their boy-girl antipathy is no less charming than their tentative stabs at intimacy, and both can seem fueled by the promise of adventure and ignited by its thrill. The only holdover from Bloede’s 2018 cast is Johnny Hohenstein, who in bygone days crossdressed to portray Mrs. Bumbrake, Molly’s flirtatious nanny.

With even more liberties, including more than a slight leftover effeminacy from Bumbrake, Hohenstein burst into full flower as the carnivorous Black Stache, heartily devouring the scenery in Stache’s emblematic amputation scene. His eyes shone greedily as he attacked the hambone bits, and yet a queer kind of avuncular calmness came over him as he finally met his predestined antagonist and named him. For some reason, Hohenstein drew the only problematic microphone on opening night but remained unflustered by its fussiness.

Of course, one of the glories of Peter Pan is its superabundance of meanies and piratical buffoons, and we do not lack them here. In her latest crossdressing exploit, Andrea King was the perfectly servile and supercilious Smee, with glints of valor and wickedness. Chip Bradley was the wily Slank, Captain of the Neverland,who steals the precious trunk full of starstuff from under the nose of Lord Aster, the Queen’s devoted ambassador and most eminent Starcatcher. Andrew Pippin portrayed the austere Aster with sufficient British crust, entrusted with the mission of transporting the precious starstuff cargo to Rundoon, where the trunk can be dumped into a nearby volcano and kept out of evil hands.

When we reach the faraway island where Peter and the trunk of starstuff serendipitously wash ashore, we will find that Neifert Enrique is the outré and eccentric King Fighting Prawn, monarch of the Mollusk natives. Was this the wildest of Moten’s costumes, or was it Hohenstein’s at the start of Act 2 during his brief song-and-dance as one of the Mermaids? Maybe Ryan Caulley snatches the prize toward the very end as Teacher, a salmon magically transformed into a Mermaid sage atop a lifeguard’s chair. It was a fitting reward for Caulley after a full evening gagged as Captain Scott from the first moment we saw him aboard his ship, the Wasp.

Ben Allen as Prentiss and Alijah Wilson as Ted were more individualized than Peter’s fellow orphans had been in previous productions I’d seen, and Miles Thompson was more rounded and nuanced as Alf, the smelly sailor who woos and distracts Molly’s nanny. Davis Hickson wasn’t as giddy and over-the-top as Hohenstein had been as Bumbrake at Theatre Charlotte in days of yore, so the Alf-Bumbrake thing (with Alf breaking most of the wind) was less orgiastic now and more genuinely warm.

“Young Frankenstein” Delivers Excess, Glitz, and Glorious Shtick

Review: Young Frankenstein at Matthews Playhouse

By Perry Tannenbaum

July 12, 2024, Matthews, NC – Just turned 98, Mel Brooks has overachieved in every way possible, including longevity. Yes, he wrote the music and lyrics in adapting his own Oscar-winning script, The Producers, into a Broadway musical. If that 2001 megahit was the most prodigious and successful transformation of his career – already past 50 years as a writer, comedian, and actor – then his 2007 follow-up, Young Frankenstein, was the most natural.

Mel had already stolen Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and Victor Herbert’s “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” to gild two of the most shining moments of the original film, shot in retro black-and-white. Composing his musical adaptation, Brooks stole some more, changing the ardent lyrics of “One Song” from Disney’s Snow White into a deliciously salacious “Deep Love” after the Broadway edition’s third coital climax.

There are some rather filthy connotations strewn throughout our horrific romp through Transylvania, enough for Matthews Playhouse to caution parents against bringing youngsters under 13 to the current production. But stage director Jill Bloede presents each granule of this glorious filth with bawdy, bodacious, and childish glee at Fullwood Theater. Scenic designer Marty Wolff, costume designer Yvette Moten, lighting designer Jeffrey Childs, and choreographer Emily Hunter are all let loose to fashion fresh layers of excess and glitz.

A whole second stage opens up behind the teeming downtown Transylvania downstage when we reach Victor Frankenstein’s secret laboratory hidden behind the mad scientist’s library – an installation that permits special effects designer Roy Schumacher to make the moments of creation and coition inside the lab more spectacular.

Brooks’s venerated comedy reputation and Bloede’s every-shtick-in-the-book approach have drawn a bounty of professional grade talent to this cast. Wearing a frizzy Gene Wilder hairdo, Neifert Enrique cements his elite credentials as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of Mary Shelley’s “Modern Prometheus,” bringing a youthful wonderment to the role that makes all the lead women’s roles a little plumier. If you missed Nick Culp’s outdoor exploits as Columbia in The Rocky Horror Picture Show during the pandemic, one of Actor’s Theatre’s valedictory efforts, his Matthews debut as Igor will likely come as a revelation, though he looked way closer to Fester Addams than to a hump-backed Marty Feldman. Lungs of steel and a wicked comedy flair.

With Mary Lynn Bain as noli-me-tangere New York socialite Elizabeth Benning and Gabriella Gonzalez as Inga, the cheery and buxom Transylvania peasant, the contrast between “Please Don’t Touch Me” and “Roll in the Hay” is as radical as any horny Frankenstein could wish. Bridging this chasm is The Monster, endowed by Brooks with a super-virility that surely would have drawn a polite giggle from Ms. Shelley. Hulking Matthew Corbett, roaring and bellowing with the best, makes Elizabeth’s deflowering a special joy, for while he is melting Bain’s ice maiden inhibitions, Brooks cooly has him overcoming his fear of fire.

Now we easily can find on YouTube that Peter Boyle actually danced in the Hollywood version, but the “Ritz” extravaganza concocted by Hunter is arguably more demanding, with Moten outfitting a good chunk of the Transylvanian peasantry in white tuxes. Top hats and canes for all the gents! We can’t call him Bojangles just yet, but Corbett contributes handsomely to the tap segments.

With leading roles in The Producers, La Cage aux Folles, Cabaret, and Ruthless! over the past 30 years, the charismatic Steve Bryan is a bit of overkill for his cameo as the Hermit. Decked out like a medieval monk, with a wig worthy of Joan Crawford in her dotage, Bryan is perfection as The Monster’s blind and bumbling host, not a trace of a smirk as he scalds his starving guest with soup – a comical affirmation of the beast’s docility as we delight in Corbett’s bellowing. Typical of his elegance, Bryan didn’t milk the last drop of deathless pathos out “Please Send Me Someone” before Corbett’s on-cue arrival answered his lonely prayers. True, Bryan got down on his knees begging, but he never once cried out for his mammy. Maybe next week.

“Clue” Reaches New Heights of Silliness at Matthews Playhouse

Review: Clue at Matthews Playhouse of the Performing Arts

By Perry Tannenbaum

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Apparently, I didn’t have much of a clue about CLUE, a new comedy by Sandy Rustin based on the 80-year-old board game and its 1985 screen adaptation. I presumed that Matthews Playhouse would be staging the musical version that has periodically skulked around regional and community theatres after ignominiously posting its closing notice a week after it opened Off-Broadway in early December 1997.

Our playbill, listing “Original music composed by Michael Holland,” kept me in the dark a bit longer until the show began without an overture or an opening number. While we waited, we had the chance to fill out a form and predict which of the “usual suspects” would be revealed as the culprit – or culprits – at the end of the show. It’s a pretty simple form since, unlike the board game, we don’t have to sniff out where the murder takes place and which of six lethal weapons is used. Simpler than the movie, too, which was famously released with three different endings.2023~Clue~4

After directing a nearly sublime Book of Will at Belmont Abbey College back in February, Jill Bloede shows that she and her sure comedy instincts can lift up the utterly ridiculous in Matthews. She and set designer Marty Wolff aren’t going to let us forget that Clue is a board game. With sliding wood panels for walls and cunning little swinging gates for doors, we can see three rooms at a time on each side of the stage simultaneously, with a corridor representing the Boddy Mansion’s hallway completing the symmetry – seven of the nine rooms depicted (even more primitively) by the humble game board’s overhead view.

Flimsy as those thin walls may appear sliding in and out of view, they must be sturdy enough to accommodate the workings of secret panels that either flip their graphics or open and shut widely enough for the comings and goings of arms visibly wielding weapons. If your Clue erudition has stuck with you since childhood, you’ll remember that those weapons are a candlestick, a lead pipe, a monkey wrench, a dagger, a rope, and a revolver.

It’s with the entrance of our prime suspects that the plot of Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay and Rustin’s script, mimicking the film’s plot setup, swerve from the classic simplicities of the Parker Brothers’ game. Each of the six guests who have been invited to the Boddy Mansion is given one of the aliases bestowed on the iconic game pieces. Each now has a colorful – but compromising – back story that he or she is being blackmailed for. Serious enough misdeeds lurk beneath all our guests’ respectable facades for a murder motive, and their sophisticated enough for them to apply for membership among the avatars of more evolved adult board games.2023~Clue~19

So Colonel Mustard does have a military background, and Mrs. Peacock, a US Senator’s wife, has reason to be prideful. Mr. Green has a gay bent that could be costly as news of the McCarthy un-American hearings, circa 1954, seep through in radio broadcasts, and Miss Scarlet’s flame seems to be fueled by undercover stints as a high-priced madame. Professor Plum was apparently disgraced in another profession before finding refuge in academia, and Mrs. White… why is she dressed in black? Presumably because one or more of her late husbands could be the skeleton in her closet.

Now if you or I were anonymously blackmailing six evildoers with DC connections, you might think twice – or 700 times – before inviting even one of those cash cows for dinner, blowing your cover and, in a faraway secluded manor, endangering your own life. Ah, but the Lynn-Rustin silliness has just begun. Let’s distribute the six iconic murder weapons among the six color-schemed guests! And after all, if six possible murderers are gathered for an evening of killing and sleuthing – and dinner! – why limit the victims to just the ever-ready Mr. Boddy?2023~Clue~10

The whole Boddy household staff might be available to boost the body count: the maid, the cook, and the butler. Maybe we could liven (or deaden?) things up with a stranded motorist, a snoopy cop, or even a singing telegram girl? Hey, it’s a party!

With Allen Andrews as the suave and mysterious butler Wadsworth greeting mutton-chopped Jeremy Cartee as the pompous Colonel Mustard, the ball gets rolling nicely as the pair let us in on the rules of the game. Andrews as Wadsworth is so slick of a host greeting all of our suspects that he manages, through sheer brass and sliminess, to cast suspicion on himself. Cartee, meanwhile, must vie with longtime local diva Paula Baldwin as Mrs. Peacock for the distinction of being the most arrogant and pretentious of the suspects. Baldwin makes up for lost time by being the most outgoing, neurotic, and loquacious guest.2023~Clue~17

Clad in a screaming red dress, red hair garishly beribboned, and wrapped in a boa, Vanessa Davis as Miss Scarlet is the polar opposite of the cool Mary Lynn Bain as the semi-funereal Mrs. White. While Davis shoots seductive glances everywhere, Bain seems to be in perpetual mourning.

Yvette Moten’s costume designs are predictably color-coded, but they are not altogether studded with solid hues. While Andrew Pippin as the reserved Mr. Green gets to wear the most stylishly coordinated and urbane ensemble in harboring the deepest secret, Moten allows herself to go fairly wild over Johnny Hohenstein’s outfit as Mr. Plum: a cringeworthy maroon plaid jacket striped with deep purple and sky blue, a weirdly coordinated motley bowtie, and the loudest purple argyle sweater she could find.

Kathleen Cole is most notable for all the costumes – and phony eyebrows – that she wears, changing from the Cook to the Singing Telegram Girl before resurfacing as police backup. That glittery delivery girl outfit would liven any costume ball.2023~Clue~1

Bloede obviously takes much delight in maneuvering her game pieces. Sometimes they scurry around so swiftly that we lose track of them, and at other times, Wadsworth and staff parade them from room to room with a ceremoniousness that actually does evoke silly avatars moving around the squares of a game board. Yet there wasn’t a single missed beat during all the hectic scene changes at the Saturday matinees, never a missed cue, and never a flubbed line.

We seem to all get nine different rooms with all the back-and-forth of the sliding walls, so efficiently whisked in and out of sight from the wings. But I don’t remember seeing a ballroom, so I’m sure we don’t see more than eight.

Eight is enough.

Off-Course “Noises Off !” Eventually Malfunctions Like Clockwork

Review: Noises Off! by Davidson Community Players

 By Perry Tannenbaum

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July 21, 2022, Davidson, NC – I’m not sure that a single American comedy has been produced as often in the Metrolina area in recent years as Noises Off, the wild door-slamming farce by Britisher Michael Frayn. What makes this particularly astounding is the monumental effort needed to mount this insanely high-energy, fast-paced work – and the time and effort it requires from audiences, stretching out to over two hours in length with two intermissions. There are folks in my family circle who groan at the prospect of one intermission. The sheer height, size, sturdiness, and swivel-ability of the scenic design – none of which can be compromised – make the comedy virtually impossible to stage at some venues.

Yet the adamantine laws of physics have not deterred some of our local companies from giving Noises Off a go. The production at Central Piedmont’s Halton Theater in 2012, for example, was penance for an ill-advised effort at panoramic Pease Auditorium in 1994. Likewise, it would have been foolhardy for Davidson Community Players to even attempt this two-story Everest of a comedy back in 2010 – or now in their encore – if they had been confined to their customary HQ at Armour Street Theatre. Fortunately, DCP had the good sense on both occasions to indulge their ambitions in the summertime, when Duke Family Performance Hall is available to them on the Davidson College campus. A ramp takes you up to the balcony level of the Duke if you arrive at the front entrance of the five-floor Knobloch Campus Center, which also houses the Alvarez Student Center. The fly loft of the theater extends to the full height of the building, so director Matt Webster can decree that the stage curtain be lowered halfway for a spectacular culminating technical gaffe.

Of course, theatre gaffes are the coin of the realm as this comedy-within-a-comedy unfolds so delightfully badly, starting with a calamitous dress rehearsal of “Nothing On” that extends past midnight into the morning of the day when it’s scheduled to open. Gleeful Instagrams and Facebook posts were broadcast to the wide world web by elated audience members at the Duke who were able to take cellphone pix of real printed programs after a hiatus of more than two years. It might be deflating, then, to recall that in the old days, we received additional fake programs from “Nothing On” with side-splitting fake bios of Lloyd Dallas, Dotty Otley, and the gang. With a charming ad for sardines, the most important of props. That’s part of a dizzying confusion we experience as we simultaneously track what’s happening in the badly-performed “Nothing On” – in a calamitous rehearsal and two calamitous performances – and the whirl of intrigue and contretemps between these endearing incompetents and their despairing director.

How do we see the personal trials, attachments, and antagonisms of these actors while they rehearse and perform a play? This is the riddle that Frayn solves so brilliantly. Because dress rehearsal is so epically bad, there are numerous pauses when the actors, stagehands, and director can interact or gossip. Then after the first intermission, Frayn obliges everyone who stages Noises Off to revolve their mammoth two-story sets a full 180 degrees so we can witness the last moments of the run-up to a second performance of “Nothing On” two months later and the performance itself – from backstage, where our actors interact as “themselves.”

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From the opening words of Act 1, when we could barely hear the venerable Jill Bloede as Dotty, it was obvious that opening night could turn into a harrowing misfire. Brandon Samples as Lloyd was usually far more audible to us, but that may have been because, in directing this dress rehearsal of “Nothing On,” Lloyd was sitting amongst us in the audience, mostly on our side of the hall. When Andrew Pippin entered from upstage as real estate agent Roger Tramplemain, and Tate Clemons followed as Vicki, the incredibly seducible girl he’s trying to seduce, my worst fears threatened to come true. Clemons was usually more audible than Pippin, but her Vicki was totally unintelligible as well. It would be hard to overstate how thankful I was, as five more performers made their fitfully audible appearances, that I had seen Noises Off at least six times before.

For newbies, welcome relief came during intermission, when I spotted empty seats and ruthlessly moved to the front row. What else happened during the break to salvage the evening cannot be reported conclusively. Surely, with a judicious visit backstage, stage director Webster would be a prime suspect in perpetrating the onset of fresh energy throughout Acts 2 and 3. Or maybe Samples, after playing Lloyd throughout Act 1, sounded the alarm backstage when he couldn’t hear his castmates during the poor director’s rambles around the hall. My wife Sue, loyal to her ticket stub and Row F, confirmed that audibility improved markedly back there for the rest of the evening.

Of course, the full benefits of increased volume don’t occur in Noises Off until Act 3. With so much of the wondrous Act 2 happening backstage, behind a monumentally delayed live performance on “Nothing On” that proceeds on the other side of the set, the principals we see are religiously hushed, adhering to actors’ etiquette. So most of the communication in Act 2 – whether amorous, angry, stealthy, jealous, urgent, frustrated, or diabolically mischievous – is delivered in earnest, energetic pantomime. You not only marvel at the synchronization between the torrid action backstage and the unseen staging of “Nothing On” which we can still hear droning and faintly exclaiming in the background, but in the precision of the hubbub in front of us as flowers, a whiskey bottle, a menacing fire axe and more keep moving in blurry rapidity across the stage, in and out of sight. Webster has all this mayhem malfunctioning like clockwork.

Most of what was missing in Act 1 arrived most emphatically in the final act, where we watch a performance of “Nothing On” some 10 weeks into its travels – discipline gone, tempers worn to a frazzle, animosities fully ripened, and the set itself needing repairs. Bloede was back on top of her game as the disillusioned and despairing Dotty, who can let all her grudges and inebriation run roughshod over her performance as Cockney housemaid Mrs. Clackett, since she is the producer bankrolling this stinkbomb.

Pippin and Clemons also showed marked improvement. All we needed from Pippin, it turns out, was a little more energy and clarity to sharpen the self-important dopiness of his Garry Lajeune and the starchy amorality of his Roger, now frazzled by too many jealousies to keep track of. Clemons is only marginally more intelligible than before as she continues her adventures with the slutty squeakiness of Vicki while attempting – probably attempting – a British accent. But we don’t need to really know what Vicki is saying anymore to appreciate the comedy of Brooke’s maddening insouciance, never varying from Vicki’s scripted lines and never thinking to improvise no matter how things have changed and disintegrated all around her.

Justin Thomas is absolutely disarming as the frail and squeamish Frederick Fellowes, the actor who portrays tax dodger Philip Brent, owner of the property that realtor Roger is seeking to rent. If there was ever even an attempt by Thomas of an English accent, I’ll confess that I missed it, and his dual role in “Nothing On” as the sheikh seeking to rent Brent’s hideaway was too brief for me to say how he handled it. We could be thankful that neither of his shticks, nosebleeds and dimwittedness, demanded an accent. Amanda Pippin doesn’t get a proportional share of the comedy as the cast gossip, Belinda Blair, the least frazzled and dysfunctional member of the troupe and their show. As Philip’s wife Flavia, Pippin does reliably abscond with various props and wardrobe, most notably Vicki’s dress.

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This allows Vicki to bustle around the two-story set and its eight doors in her underwear through most of the staged action we see. This wantonness gave us the notion that Vicki would ultimately become the title character of the “Nothing On” we never see, while justifying the aging Lloyd Dallas’s enduring backstage lust and devotion toward Brooke Ashton. He’s supposed to be away somewhere in Act 2 rehearsing Richard II, but he returns to see his dear nymphet. Emerging from hiding, Lloyd is outraged and distracted by all the chaos of the production. Then he becomes the excruciating victim in one of the most comical climaxes we’ll ever see. Much of Samples’ pantomimed sufferings are caused by Lloyd’s traveling stage crew, Jack Bruce as the inept and overworked handyman, Tim Allgood, and Jenna Tyrell as Poppy, the competent and frowzily attractive stage manager who doesn’t realize she’s been dumped by Dallas.

This oddball trio of Allgood, Poppy, and Dallas unite surprisingly in the comedy climax of Act 3 when Fellowes performs his crowning feat of dimwittedness. Suffice it to say that Jonathan Ray as the aging alcoholic actor, Selsdon Mowbray, is supposed to make a surprise appearance in “Nothing On” as a septuagenarian burglar. But he’s too deaf to reliably catch his cue line – and too frequently soused to reliably be there, ready to break in. The hilarious catastrophe far exceeds even a doomsayer’s expectations. You might be surprised to learn that I auditioned for Selsdon way back in 1992, when Theatre Charlotte brought Noises Off to town. That’s too long ago for me to remember how I intended to play Selsdon, but I suspect that my performance would have more soused, more crotchety, and more devious than what you will behold at Duke Family Performance Hall. Maybe that’s why I found myself cherishing Ray’s mellower, more natural portrayal.

The Road Gets Bumpy, but Theatre Charlotte’s “Christmas Carol” Prevails at CP

Review: A Christmas Carol at Halton Theater

 By Perry Tannenbaum

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Almost a year ago, fire struck the Theatre Charlotte building on Queens Road, gouging a sizable trench in its auditorium and destroying its electrical equipment. Repairs and renovations will hopefully be completed in time for the launch of the company’s 95th season next fall, but meanwhile, actors, directors, designers, and technicians are soldiering on at various venues for 2021-22, their year of exile cheerfully branded as “The Road Trip Season Tour.” Ironically enough, Theatre Charlotte’s Season 94 began in September with a downsized musical, The Fantasticks, at the Palmer Building, a facility that once served as a training ground for firefighters. For their 14th production of A Christmas Carol, Theatre Charlotte has moved along to Halton Theater, the permanent home of Central Piedmont Theatre.

Timing is a bit awkward on the campus of Central Piedmont Community College, where a new theater that will be friendlier to dramatic productions – replacing the demolished Pease Auditorium – is slated to open in April with The Diary of Anne Frank. Graced with a generous orchestra pit, the Halton is more hospitable to big splashy musicals (when its sound system responds favorably to our crossed fingers). In fact, this transplanted production of A Christmas Carol, in Julius Arthur Leonard’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ iconic novella, reminds us how well-suited the old “Queens Road barn” was for such spooky and creepy fare. Not only were the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future at home there, but so were such confections as Arsenic and Old Lace, Assassins, Blithe Spirit, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The Halton occasionally seemed oversized when You Can’t Take It With You took up residence there at the beginning of Central Piedmont’s current season, and you can imagine how their spectacular 2015 Phantom of the Opera emphasized the grandness of Andy Lloyd Webber’s grand guignol.

Encountering the vastness of the Halton in transplanting Theatre Charlotte’s cozy Christmas Carol, director Jill Bloede has been characteristically resourceful in executing its many daunting scene changes. At times, we could see cast members whisking set pieces off to the wings in a smooth out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new routine. But there were occasions when changes of scenery necessitated a complete closing and reopening of the stage curtains. Veiling the tediousness of that maneuver, Bloede has summoned repeated parades of a small band of merry carolers, coached by Jim Eddings, to cross the stage while the curtains are closed – so you would probably be right in thinking there are more carols sung this year than in Christmases past on Queens Road. My welcome for the carolers on opening night veered toward the unredeemed Ebenezer Scrooge’s grumpy attitude as the evening progressed, yet opening night is destined to be enshrined in Theatre Charlotte lore as the night of the infamous doorknocker scene fiasco.

One of the first indications that Scrooge’s house will be haunted, after a ghostly “Ebenezer Scrooge!” exclamation blows in on the Halton’s sound system, is the brief scene at the threshold to Ebenezer’s home. Here is where Scrooge sees a fleeting glimpse of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, bringing his doorknocker to life. The precision needed to carry off such a simple scene only became apparent when it went awry. Either the Halton curtains were tardy in arriving at their centerstage spots, where they would fully frame Scrooge’s front door, or the actor who was to lurk unseen behind that door arrived early – and was very clearly seen, garishly aglow. Portraying Scrooge, Hank West seemed sufficiently poised to extemporize while the stage curtains and the lurking Marley came into proper alignment. But the carolers took their cue and entered before West could properly proceed, and the panicked actor behind the door fled. West finished out the brief scene as well he could without any eerie lights beaming through the doorknocker, but the special effect was lost – the only real reason for that scene.

Legions of Theatre Charlotte veterans – and new initiates in years to come – will no doubt keep the memory of this snafu alive for generations, heartily laughing all the more at the incident because it didn’t typify the production. Scenic design by Chris Timmons and lighting by Gordon Olson didn’t expand quite enough to comfortably acclimate at the Halton, nor did the company splurge on smoke or fog effects during its financial woes, which might have deepened the spell of the spookier Marley and graveyard scenes. Don’t expect any snow to flutter down on the vast Halton acreage, either. With balmy temperatures likely to prevail throughout the opening weekend, it’s Beth Killion’s set of period costumes that most successfully instill a chill into the air.IMG_8525

We’ve seen some of this cast before, notably West as Scrooge, Chip Bradley as Christmas Present, and Mary Lynn Bain doubling as Fred’s wife Elizabeth in the present and Belle, Scrooge’s old flame, in the flashbacks. All of these enlarge on their past performances to some extent, maybe West most of all. His meanness is more startling in person than it was in last year’s video version, streamed online, and his sorrow and penitence are also magnified. The graceful arc of Scrooge’s redemption is only slightly bumpier this year with West’s adjustments to the new space, Bloede’s script edits for this intermission-free edition, and a body mic. Projected into a larger hall, Scrooge’s newly minted intentions needed to sound more like settled resolves and less like agonized pleas. Bradley enlarges to a similar degree upon Present’s outsized cheer, the more the merrier in his case – until he issues his climactic admonitions, now sharper in their contrast. Bain seems most content to let her mic do her amplification, but she is stronger this year in the climactic flashback scene when she returns Ebenezer’s engagement ring.IMG_8694_dcoston

All the newcomers to TC’s Carol are quite fine, a testament to Bloede’s ability to attract talent when she holds auditions. In contrast with the veiled youthful mystery of Anna McCarty last year, Suzanne Newsom brought a nostalgic melancholy to the Ghost of Christmas Past that was quite affecting in its serenity, while Mike Corrigan appeared for the first time as Bob Cratchit – very different with his more muted brand of meekness from Andrea King last year but no less kindly or comical. For richer or poorer, Josh Logsdon and Rebecca Kirby were a fine pairing for the Fezziwigs, Aedan Coughlin doubled well as Young Ebenezer and Ghost of Christmas Future, and Riley Smith brought all the optimism needed for the sanctity of Tiny Tim. With Mitzi Corrigan and Emma Corrigan on board as Mrs. Cratchit and daughter Belinda, there’s plenty of family authenticity around the humble Cratchit hearth – or there will be when Mitzi returns from personal leave due to a death in her real family. Vanessa Davis spelled ably for Corrigan as Mrs. Cratchit at the premiere performance, augmenting her regular role as Mrs. Dilbur.

Assuming that Thom Tonetti was already in character as Jacob Marley during the notorious doorknocker scene, I’ll say his opening night adventures most typified the Theatre Charlotte crew’s tribulations in acclimating to a new space. Marley’s entrance into Scrooge’s home wasn’t dramatized with smoke and lights, and Tonetti didn’t enjoy the benefit of having his prophecies and imprecations magnified with thunderous jolts from the soundboard. During the flashbacks, the actor certainly earned some sort of sportsmanship award, appearing as the younger Jacob opposite the truly younger Coughlin.IMG_8645_dcoston

Steadying this production and assuring that its professional polish never deteriorated into community theatre chaos for long, West ultimately triumphed over all missteps and obstacles, bringing us the compelling Scrooge we expect in all his goodness. It’s still a strong story, and 24 of its most ardent Theatre Charlotte believers are moonlighting at Central Piedmont, giving this 87-minute production the old college try. A drama within a drama, to be sure, both ending happily.

Originally published on 12/18 at CVNC.org

2020 or Not 2020

Review: A Half-Masked Christmas Carol at Theatre Charlotte

By Perry Tannenbaum

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Luckily, the Ghost of Christmas Present in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, so friendly and jolly with his glowing torch, was more than 175 years removed from 2020 when he made his first oxymoronic appearance in print. Christmas of 1843 may not have been the best ever as it greeted Dickens’ original readers, but it had to be more festive than 2020, the gloomiest in centuries.

While it’s possible to retreat into the nostalgia of numerous movie and TV adaptations of the Yuletide classic, Charlotte is one of hundreds of cities where watching live theatrical adaptations has become a holiday tradition. So it’s fascinating, even revelatory to see how Theatre Charlotte is adapting to the unprecedented circumstances of 2020 in presenting its 14th annual production of A Christmas Carol.

It’s a remarkable chameleon, adapted by Julius Arthur Leonard and co-directed by Stuart Spencer and Chris Timmons. This is truly a to-be-or-not-to-be effort: Live and virtual, at Theatre Charlotte on Queens Road and not, set in Dickens’ London in the 19th century and unmistakably invaded by COVID-19 and the constraints of the pandemic. 2020 or not 2020.

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Watching the virtual version recorded at the Queens Road barn, I was surprised to find how Dickens’ characters, in period costumes designed by Chelsea Retalic, replicated daily life today. While Marley and the three famous Christmas Ghosts wore masks, others – including Scrooge, his nephew, and the Cratchits – did not. No wonder poor Tiny Tim is dying!

Live outdoor performances of Theatre Charlotte’s pandemic edition of Dickens premiered at Christ South’s Old Dairy Farm in Waxhaw on Reid Dairy Road, which may account for some of the anomalies we see when we tune in to the indoor version. Outdoors, winter is upon us, so Spencer and Timmons may not have wished their Scrooge to change into his jammies. Besides that, an outdoor shift in scene from the Scrooge & Marley counting house to Ebenezer’s bedroom may have been unwieldy out on the farm.

So all of the action, aside from the Ghosts’ travels, is confined to Scrooge’s office until he sallies forth on Christmas day. To achieve this economy and consistency, Spencer and Timmons alter the plot just a little, sending Scrooge outdoors for dinner and having him realize that he has forgotten his pocket watch at his office. That’s where Marley and the Ghosts will now do their haunting. Nor do our directors forget about Ebenezer’s watch or his watch chain, elegantly transforming it into a fresh plot point without changing any of the dialogue.

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The uncredited set design, likely by Timmons, is very spare, silhouettes of city and government buildings in the background, connected to the Scrooge & Marley firm by a stunted staircase and a front door. No walls or windows obscure our view of the sidewalk outside the office or the silhouetted figures that traverse it. Inside, we never need more at Scrooge’s HQ than desks for Ebenezer and his oppressed drone Bob Cratchit. Bedtime is never observed, so there’s no longer any need for a bed. When we visit the Cratchits or Scrooge’s nephew Fred, as much as a cushioned chair and a wee table are necessary, so that Fred’s wife may have a glass of wine and a decanter nearby, but that is all.

Sound design by Timmons and Vito Abate only blunders with the opening and closing of Scrooge’s front door. Opening it lets in a hullabaloo of street sounds and closing it silences the noise – except we can clearly hear the footsteps of whoever departs on the sidewalk. Grander and more successful are the sounds heralding the supernatural entrances of Marley and the three Christmas Ghosts, while lighting by Rick Wiggins brashly suggests that all three of Scrooge’s guides have celestial origins.

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Hank West, mostly prized around town for his comedy exploits, is not a complete stranger to mean roles, having portrayed the Marquis de Sade in 2003. There’s nothing missing of Scrooge’s flinty cantankerousness in the opening scene. West’s rebuffs of a charitable solicitor (just one this year instead of two) and his nephew Fred are even more repellent than his tyranny and resentment toward Cratchit. It’s when we approach West’s comedic wheelhouse where we find him woefully hamstrung. Deprived of Scrooge’s bedclothes and his dopey nightcap – the lone accessories that make Ebenezer vulnerable or adorable through five-sixths of the story – West must accompany the Ghosts in business attire.

Worse than that, West must give us a Scrooge who dances with glee, realizing that he hasn’t missed Christmas morning, dressed up like an adult going to work rather than as a child waking from – and to – a fabulous holiday dream. Missing this parcel of Dickens’ visual genius, we can appreciate it more, for the nightcap and bedclothes are also as indispensable to the distinctive flavor of Scrooge’s supernatural journeys as the Ghosts’ personalities.

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West’s comedy isn’t totally eclipsed, peeping out in his retorts to Cratchit and the Solicitor, in his timing of remarks after visitors exit, and in his sunny sallies around town making his many amends. Of course, the final prank on Cratchit when he comes in late on the 26th is handsomely done, though I was a little surprised by West’s decision to underplay Scrooge’s mischievousness and glee as he did Ebenezer’s playacting.

More women than men are seen onstage here, with Andrea King tipping the balance as Bob Cratchit. At work, she is purely deferential toward Scrooge, and King’s entrance on the 26th has a stealth worthy of Chaplin or Lucille Ball. We probably notice that at home, King’s Cratchit as a husband and a father comes off as less of a patriarch than we’re accustomed to. Can’t say that I minded much – am I becoming too evolved?

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Seeing both Allen Andrews as Christmas Yet to Come and Josh Logsdon as Marley’s Ghost wearing masks hardly detracted from their portrayals. Logsdon’s mask had an orifice that seemed rimmed with teeth, he was bundled up with enough rags under his chains to look like a leper, and a huge gray wig affixed to his head with a shroud-like kerchief made him even more loathsome. Notwithstanding Scrooge’s doubts, when Logsdon bemoaned his fate and issued Marley’s warnings, there was far more grave than gravy in this ghost.

More noticeable were the alterations that masks imposed on the women Ghosts. Reprising her role as Christmas Past, Anna McCarty had a veiled look in her gleaming white gown, Arabian or ecclesiastical in its modesty. Yet when she needed to be strong and authoritative, McCarty didn’t disappoint, even though she seemed more socially-distanced than her castmates. Lechetze Lewis as Christmas Present was free to mingle more in her garrulous London tour. Her lively interaction with Fred and his wife, Andrews and Mary Lynn Bain, offered the most spectacular display of Retalic’s costume designs this side of Marley.

Andrews’ entreaties that Uncle Scrooge come dine with Fred were nearly as foundational in establishing the Christmas spirit on Queens Road as Cratchit’s sufferings and goodwill. Bain was also more impactful when she doubled as Belle, Scrooge’s sweetheart in the flashback, particularly when she returns her engagement ring, releases Ebenezer from his obligations, and decries his worship of Mammon.

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Little moments like this, Cratchit applauding Fred’s advocacy of Christmas, and the perfect view we get of Cratchit sneaking in late after the holiday are among the many testaments we get to the work of Megan Shiflett and Nick Allison behind the cameras – delivering the best angles from the best distances. Theatre Charlotte may not have the resources that CPCC can boast in video gear, but they’re outstripping every live video I’ve seen from the college, because Spencer and Timmons are so deftly cuing their cameras where to be and when.

Amid the special hardships of 2020, local theatre companies are substantially sharpening their video techniques and their cinema savvy, good tidings that will pay dividends when COVID-19 is conquered.

With Jill Bloede executing the Narrator’s role in such a ceremonious British style, and with the likes of Tom Ollis and Rebecca Kirby as the Fezziwigs, quality runs deep in this cast – as deep as you’d expect with productions running twice the five performances this one is getting. There’s plenty of mileage left in the virtual version, which continues its on-demand run through January 2.

Climb Aboard a Retro Laugh Riot

Review: A highly animated Odd Couple revival with a professional-grade cast

By Perry Tannenbaum

 

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With the benefit of hindsight, we can see more clearly that Neil Simon and his esteemed stablemates – Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, and Mel Brooks – who all wrote for Sid Caesar during the early days of television, didn’t simply disperse into the realms of stand-up, movies, and theatre for the obvious practical reasons. Autonomy, fame, and fortune were surely enticing, but so was the satisfaction of working in longer forms than TV sketch comedy or a star comedian’s monologues.

Come back to The Odd Couple – or revisit Bananas and Zelig, A Funny Thing Happened and Tootsie, The Producers and Blazing Saddles – and we see a mature writer working beyond the limitations of zany characters and snappy one-liners. Simon develops his Oscar and Felix, tells a full-length story about them, and keeps the hilarity going. Entering Theatre Charlotte, where Jill Bloede is directing a highly animated Odd Couple revival with a professional-grade cast, I wasn’t thinking that I’d be seeing this old cash cow so freshly.

Somehow the difference between this 1965 comedy and TV sitcoms of the same era – including the spinoff Odd Couple sitcom that came to ABC in 1970 – suddenly seemed rather radical. The cardinal rule for most 22-minute sitcom writers back then was to hit the reset button at the end of each episode, so that next week’s episode would start out as if this week’s had never happened. On Broadway, you could expect the uptight, neurotic, neat freak Felix to wear out his slovenly pal Oscar’s patience by the time the curtain came down. On TV? No way. Felix made himself at home in Oscar’s Manhattan apartment for nearly five seasons.

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Many in the sold-out house at the Queens Road barn on opening night were struck even more freshly by Felix, Oscar, their poker-night buddies, and the neighboring Pigeon Sisters. Unless the younger people in the house had been hooked on the Matthew Perry reincarnation of the sitcom during 2015-2017 on CBS, they likely hadn’t run into much Simon or Oscar in their lifetimes. I was a little taken aback when I came home, double-checked, and found that I’d only seen Odd Couple once in Charlotte during the last 30+ years, back in 2007 at CPCC.

On the other hand, this comedy staple had been quasi road-tested at Theatre Charlotte when the Female Version – with Florence, Olive and a klatch of Trivial Pursuit-playing women replacing the poker buddies – dropped by in the summer of 2012. Bloede also directed then, an overachievement that certainly warranted her current return engagement.

Whether it’s Lady Bracknell or Lucy Ricardo, Bloede knows her comedy, and she has prospected long enough in Charlotte to be able to mine its finest talent. Doesn’t look like she had to twist any arms, either. For her Oscar, she landed the most experienced Simon exponent in town, Brian Lafontaine. Breaking in to Charlotte theatre in 1992-1994, Lafontaine played leads in three of Simon’s comedies, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues on Queens Road – and Lost in Yonkers at Charlotte Rep.

Bloede goes edgier and high-energy for her Felix with Mark Scarboro, who first carved out his eccentric niche in 2001-02 with standout performances in Thumbs, The Pitchfork Disney, and Fuddy Meers. Yet Bloede has Lafontaine playing the 43-year-old Oscar with more energy than I’ve ever seen from this slovenly New York Post sportswriter. If she’s going to turn Scarboro loose to be as anal, neurotic, outré, and irritating as he can imagine Felix to be, then she’s returning the favor to Lafontaine and turning him loose to be as irritated, provoked, and out-of-control as he can imagine a devout 44-year-old slob can be.

No less pleasurable is the build-up to Felix’s first entrance. That’s because Bloede has a deep bench sitting around Oscar’s dining room poker table, supporting her stars. If we’re returning to Odd Couple, we’re likely surprised to find that Felix isn’t going to show up until we’re 17 pages into the script. Even Oscar isn’t onstage at the outset in his own apartment! Simon’s poker preamble steadily stokes concern for fragile Felix’s welfare in the wake of his breakup with his wife, but there’s already hostility and comedy shtick at the table before the two marquee combatants show up.

Just watch Michael Corrigan and Patrick Keenan at work, sparring as Murray and Speed, and you’ll see that Bloede has selected a second comedy team for us to revel in, very much in the same Felix-Oscar, Laurel-Hardy template. Decades ago, when Corrigan was younger and slimmer, he tended to remind you of Tim Conway. So the particular quirks of Murray the policeman come to readily to Corrigan, his exasperating slowness in shuffling cards and his alarmist reactions to any new news about Felix. Keenan is the master of the slow burn and the bellowing explosion, repeatedly supplying perfect exclamation points to punctuate the comedy.

Tall and lanky Matt Olin is the perfect choice for the spineless Vinnie, the guy Murray and Speed can both agree to pick on, the dutiful husband who submits to his wife’s curfew, and the man who deeply appreciates Felix’s sissy sandwiches. Meanwhile, Lee Thomas continues to ply his teddy bear charm as Oscar’s diffident, occasionally witty accountant, Roy.

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If you’re worried that Bloede might be taking PC pains to update the Pigeon Sisters and present them as more evolved, rest easy. Vanessa Davis as Gwendolyn and Johanna Jowett as Cecily stay true to their origins, Davis the flirtier sister and Jowett the more empathetic bleeding heart. Set designer Rick Moll, costumer Yvette Moten, and sound designer Rick Wiggins have all climbed aboard Theatre Charlotte’s retro train. With a soundtrack that includes James Brown, Petula Clark, Jack Jones, Herb Alpert, and The Shirelles, Bloede and her all-pro cast are bent on taking you back to the ‘60s, like it or not. I’m betting you’ll like it.

Fleet Buffoonery Conquers Enchantment in “Peter and the Starcatcher”

Review: Peter and the Starcatcher

By Perry Tannenbaum

As a fairly frequent reader of Dave Barry’s newspaper work, still recycling in Miami Herald newsletters a full 13 years after he left, I’ve developed a healthy skepticism about whether the humorist is capable of being serious about anything. I was optimistic that I might witness a breakthrough back in 2012 when I realized – as I was preparing to review the original Broadway production – that Rick Elice’s Tony Award-nominated Peter and the Starcatcher was adapted from a novel by Barry and Ridley Pearson.

Surely a prequel to Peter Pan, the most adulated and beloved story of the 20th century, would give Barry the incentive to see beyond his next one-liner, especially with a collaborator on board to keep him from jumping the rails. The giddy acclaim buzzing around the show and its five Tony wins for acting and design further fueled my optimism. On a July evening, I entered the Brooks Atkinson Theatre with the wild expectation of seeing a play that artfully, joyfully, and humorously dovetailed with James M. Barrie’s indelible fantasy.

My expectations were badly misaligned with the clever deconstruct of storytelling that I saw. Elice and Barry were equally tone-deaf to the sense of enchantment that Barrie brought to Peter Pan and to the Englishman’s flavorful zest for the primitive. In its belated rush to chime with the story so many of us grew up with, Starcatcher plopped Neverland in the middle of the ocean rather than up in the stars, Peter remained far from the heartless arrogant joy we all remember, and we were left to figure out that Barry’s Molly was Barrie’s Mary, Wendy’s elegant mom.

Unhindered by my former expectations, I found the touring version of Starcatcher far more enjoyable than the Broadway version when it came to Charlotte in 2014. A lot of credit went to the players. There was more chemistry at Knight Theater between Peter and Molly than I saw on Broadway, therefore more heart emerging from Elice’s script, and unlike the fellow who tried so hard to please as Tony Award winner Christian Borle’s replacement, John Sanders seemed to be having a great time as Black Stache, alias Captain Hook.

Yet I must have still been searching for Barry-Barrie links that I might have missed two years earlier, because I found myself even more pleased last week when Theatre Charlotte opened their 91st season with Jill Bloede directing a strong cast in Peter and the Starcatcher. Adept at zany comedy and slapstick, Bloede knows what this piece is – and what it isn’t. She has prodded Dave Blamy to the top of his game as Stache, no less funny here than in his award-winning turns at Actor’s Theatre in The 39 Steps and The Scene, eight years ago and more. How far can Blamy go over-the-top? The climactic amputation scene will be your delightful answer. Part-time foil and part-time torment, Jeff Powell as Smee outbumbles his master, perpetually aflutter and the perfect complement for Blamy,

Prime yourself for buffoonish villainy rather than hapless wicked cunning to get the full effect of Blamy Stache. The other wicked captain onstage, Tim Huffman as Captain Slank, takes up some of the slack on wickedness and menace – not a surprise if you saw Huffman in his Queens Road debut in The Crucible. Two piratical seamen have gotten wind of the treasure that Lord Leonard Aster is transporting to India. Getting both vessels to sea obliges us to accept that Lord Aster would want her Molly to sail separately from her father with one of the two treasure chests.

With Troy Feay making his Theatre Charlotte debut as milord, there was plenty starchy British propriety on board one of the ships, and with Johnny Hohenstein crossdressing as Mrs. Bumbrake, there was plenty of bawdy bustle aboard the other. Bowen Abbey woos her with intermittent success as Alf, allowing Hohenstein some comical vacillations – and partially explaining her slack supervision of Molly. Hey, they’re all kidnapped anyway, so Mrs. B has some cover for her negligence.

Also kidnapped – sold into slavery, if you want to get picky – are three orphan boys whom Molly befriends. By the process of elimination, we can figure out that the urchin with no name, played with a soft chip on his shoulder by Patrick Stepp, will eventually emerge as Peter. In the spirit of adventure, Molly seeks them out in the bowels of the pirate ship, and in the spirit of Barrie’s Wendy, she takes on the burden of educating the Lost Boys. Fifteen-year-old Ailey Finn is more than sufficiently precocious to portray both the tomboy and maternal dimensions of Molly. Why not? She was Rose of Sharon nearly a year ago in Theatre Charlotte’s Grapes of Wrath!

Stepp and Finn both render their roles like they’re on the cusp of puberty, so their mutual awakening comes moments before they must part forever. With Bloede at the helm, this is the most poignant ending I’ve seen in any Starcatcher production.

We seem to get there at warp speed, even though Bloede manages to sharpen Captain Slank and Mrs. Bumbrake more than I’ve previously experienced. Yet the sensory bombardment is so constant that I can admit without shame that, while I can tell you that Jesse Pritchard and A.J. White played the orphans creditably, I can’t say for sure whether Prentiss was the ornery one or Ted. Likewise, a peep into Wikipedia was necessary to nail down which character wooed Mrs. B.

Somebody remarked to me in the lobby at intermission that Peter and the Starcatcher is like children’s theatre for adults. If you’ve seen ensembles in children’s productions who break away from their characters and directly narrate to the audience, you’ll see the truth of that comment hand-in-hand with Elice’s deconstructing mischief. We are taking in a lot of information here. Listening to the players is often a more reliable indicator of where we are than following the changes in Chris Timmons’ spare set design, nicely coordinated with Gordon Olson’s lighting.

Keeping pace with all that happens is hard enough without worrying how Elice’s play connects with Barrie’s. So don’t. It was only on my third go-round that I realized how important the sound designer’s contributions are to making Starcatcher work. No sound designer is listed in the Theatre Charlotte playbill, so I’ll cite Ben Sparenberg and Rick Wiggins, listed jointly as light and sound board operators. Bloede and her cast certainly keep them busy, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that both of them might be cuing sounds together when tensions intensify.

You won’t find much enchantment in this 91st season launch, but there’s some magic aboard one of the ships when we land in Neverland. The journey is roaring good fun at its best, and it’s running with professional polish and precision.

The Other Shue Drops at Theatre Charlotte With “The Nerd”

Review: The Nerd

By Perry Tannenbaum

It’s only infrequently that playwright Larry Shue’s name crops up on the Charlotte theatre scene. The New Orleans native, whose comedies were all premiered at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, died in an airplane crash at the age of 39, while his most familiar work, The Foreigner, was still playing off-Broadway. Charlotte Repertory Theatre staged that backwoods farce during the same year that Shue died, 1985, and it was a huge hit, so huge that when Rep marked its 25th anniversary in 2001, a revival of The Foreigner was part of their celebration.

Yet Shue’s “other” comedy, The Nerd, also figured significantly in Rep’s history, for when the company went from a summertime schedule to year-round status in 1988, The Nerd was the company’s first non-summer production. Thirty years later, the current Theatre Charlotte presentation of The Nerd is actually its Charlotte premiere, for Rep staged this wacky comedy at Davidson College.

Wacky might be considered a gracious description of The Nerd, which premiered in Milwaukee two years before The Foreigner and arrived on Broadway two years after its worthier sibling. Silly, over-the-top, and unfocused might be better ways to describe this belated coming-of-age story of young architect Willum Cubbert. We first encounter the low-key Willum as he’s insufficiently surprised by his 28th birthday party. The surprises have hardly begun, for the party is wildly impacted by the unexpected arrival of the title character, Rick Steadman, who retains Willum’s undying gratitude for saving his life in Vietnam.

Thanks to other guests, excesses abound before Rick’s bodacious entrance. Not only is Willum’s current client, Warnock Waldgrave, insensitive to the niceties of Willum’s architectural drawings, he comes to the party with a neurotic wife and a fiercely obnoxious daughter. The little brat has thrown two or three tantrums, assaulted her dad and other adults, and locked herself stubbornly in the bathroom on multiple occasions – a sedate warmup compared to the action after Rick arrives. As you might presume, the extremely starchy Warnock and the preternaturally eccentric and irritating Rick are not destined to get along.

Aside from Willum, whose gratitude toward Rick and dependence on Warnock prevent him from taking a hard line, two of Willum’s friends, Axel Hammond and Tansy McGinnis, try to mediate as the party spirals further out of control. Tansy is particularly sympathetic toward Willum. She’s his girlfriend now but will soon be breaking his heart when she moves from Terre Haute, Indiana, to DC, where she has a job waiting for her as a TV weathergirl. Axel is a drama critic, so he’s more inclined to crack wise than be helpful.

Just when it seems that Willum’s evening can’t get any worse, Rick makes his second entrance, suitcases in hand, intent on moving in. It’s here that Shue begins to misdirect us or lose focus, for everyone onstage except Rick becomes intently preoccupied with expelling Willum’s noxious visitor. We’re likely to forget that Tansy has really set the agenda early on in a conversation with Axel.

With set and lighting by John P. Woodey, this Theatre Charlotte production has a very sharp and detailed look to it, augmented by Sabrina Blanks’ splendid costume designs. Mom Clelia and daughter Thoralee clash like crazy in their party outfits, and Rick, dogged in insisting that this is a Halloween party, is positively unearthly when he arrives. Directing this mayhem, Jill Bloede takes a sensible approach, drawing outré performances from her three most noisome players, Trulyn Rhinehardt as the incorrigible Thoralee, Simon Donaghue as a perpetually outraged Warnock, and Jonathan Slaughter as The Nerd.

Rhinehardt misbehaves with such savage zest that you’ll want to take a stick to her. I don’t mind saying that I most delighted in Thoralee when she fainted from fright. Even if Bloede hadn’t changed Thoralee’s gender – Shue originally saddled Warnock with a Thor – I don’t think that a fainting spell by a bratty boy would have been any more satisfying. Donoghue’s powerful take on Warnock seemed to be the only misguided aspect of Bloede’s approach: why didn’t he take a stick or a belt – or a machine gun – to his unruly daughter, and why didn’t he simply fire Willum on the spot for ruining his day? Whatever softness accounted for Warnock’s forbearance wasn’t visible.

Slaughter’s way with Rick, not far distant in its absurdity from the sound and awkwardness of the Nutty Professor minted by Jerry Lewis, always bordered precariously on the unbelievable. There were times when Rick seemed to be trying to irritate everyone in sight, exactly the impression that Shue would have approved of. A tad too young to be playing Willum, perhaps, Cole Pedigo was a near-perfect foil for Rick’s nuttiness once he conquered his opening-night jitters. Shue wanted us to see a talented desirable man who is kind, grateful, and accommodating to a fault. That was exactly how we saw Pedigo.

Shue’s women weren’t as well drawn here as they would be in The Foreigner, but Bloede probably could have pushed Allison Kranz as Tansy and Audrey Wells as Clelia further toward farce. They also suffer at the epic birthday party from hell, Tansy especially after she slaves over a custom-made dinner and Clelia most memorably when she quizzes Rick about his love life. Perhaps if Shue had made her more decisive, Tansy would have seemed less vanilla as the would-be weathergirl, so Kranz definitely needed to pick her spots to show us that she was worthy of Willum’s adoration. Mostly, Shue and I forgot about her. Of course, Clelia was as much generic comedy material as her child, but Shue gave her some bravura business to perform in her reactions. Bloede should have lit the fire that would have made these diva moments for Wells. We weren’t as close to Carol Burnett as we should have been.

Deep in the weave of Shue’s plot is Axel, whose scheme to exorcise Rick in Act 2 is approximately as disastrous as the birthday party was before intermission. Chip Bradley is sufficiently urbane and snarky as this theatre critic, but I sometimes got the impression that he was a late addition to the cast. Along with a few instances of slow cue pickup, Bradley fumbled a few lines before getting them right. I’ve seen him do better in productions just as fast-paced as this one, so I’m expecting better performances in the nights ahead.

Coping with so many moving parts and quirks, Charlotte Rep also had some rough edges in its opening night performance of The Nerd 30 years ago. You wouldn’t want to tame all of this volatile ball of energy, but a little more energy here and a little sharpening there would help Theatre Charlotte’s production to snap into better shape.