The Passion of a Pet

Review of Sylvia, Music Theatre of Connecticut

It’s Valentine’s Day and if your sense of romance may have stalled somewhat over the years, maybe Sylvia, A.R. Gurney’s romantic comedy now playing at MTC, Norwalk, has the answer: get a dog!

Directed by Kevin Connors, Gurney’s play is affable and light. There may be a sense in which the midlife crisis faced by Greg (Dennis Holland) is symptomatic of something darker, but, in general, the play assumes that long-married couples may find themselves confronted by new tastes or long-suppressed desires or dissatisfactions that could manifest in many ways. Greg and Kate (Carole Dell’Aquila) have been together twenty years and the crisis comes in the form of an affectionate stray that Greg encountered in a park and brings home, expecting Kate to just lie down and roll over, so to speak.

Sylvia (Bethany Fitzgerald) in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at MTC (photo by Alex Mongillo)

The dog wears a collar with its name, Sylvia, and she is a bundle of energy and, thanks to the miracle of theater, we are privy to her thoughts. That aspect of the play—the verbalized reactions of a frisky dog—is a crowd-pleaser, however obvious. As played by Bethany Fitzgerald, Sylvia is indeed a charming pet and anyone who might look askance at a woman playing a dog shouldn’t judge until they see it done. She looks upon Greg as “God,” aims to please, gets excited by each new arrival at the apartment, wants nothing more than to stretch out upon furniture, and speaks with an intense immediacy, suitable to an animal that lives in the moment. She’s also funny and lovable and makes the play work. Yes, the dog does indeed wag the tale.

Sylvia (Bethany Fitzgerald), Kate (Carole Dell’Aquila) in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at MTC (photo by Alex Mongillo)

Less obvious and somewhat less successful is how to stretch such a slight premise into a two hour play, with intermission. This is not easy to do as Gurney hasn’t given Greg’s wife much of a role. Dell’Aquila manages to seem sensible rather than a wet blanket, mostly. But whether or not she has your sympathy may have something to do with how you feel about dogs, and middle-aged men, and the possibilities in life afforded to post-menopausal women. Early on, it seems we might find fun in her occupation as a high school teacher of Shakespeare, so that when she offers “thus bad begins and worse remains behind,” we might catch ourselves hoping that more Shakespearean lines or tropes will percolate through the play. Not so much; Greg never even manages to play on his wife’s sympathies by intoning “What joy is joy if Silvia be not by?” And yet that is where he’s at, you might say.

Sylvia (Bethany Fitzgerald), Greg (Dennis Holland) in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at MTC (photo by Alex Mongillo)

Sylvia, in her unquestioning affection, helps her master deal with his current malaise: a job that has passed him by for younger colleagues with younger ambitions, an empty nest; and a wife who is done with the “the dog phase” of her life, much as she is with the children-raising part, and, almost, the stand-by-your-man part. For her, it’s a time to get on with things she wants to do—like research; for Greg, it’s a time in which companionship of some kind is needed. While we might expect that his new-found infatuation might be a younger woman, the play cleverly assumes that a dog can be more appealing than a new paramour. If there’s a bit of winking at the notion of bestiality in Act Two, it certainly isn’t played up in this production.

Tom (Jim Schilling), Greg (Dennis Holland) in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at MTC (photo by Alex Mongillo)

Connors draws upon the comic abilities of MTC regular Jim Schilling to create three different characters who intervene in the hi-jinx. One—Phyllis—is a tony lady friend of Kate’s, played for laughs as a not so surreptitious tippler; another—Leslie—is a counselor of fluid gender who seems to suspect the worst of Greg’s urges for Sylvia and recommends that Kate work up the full revenge-fury of a wronged wife. As Tom, he’s a buddy-buddy bench-warmer at Dog Hill (a park where city-folk can let their canines cavort) with a male dog of his own, and the eventual coupling of Sylvia and Bowser, off-stage, might illicit a variety of comic reactions. Schilling and Holland play it mild, at every point letting us off the hook of having to view Sylvia sexually. And that’s helped by Fitzgerald’s refusal to play Sylvia as, well, kittenish. Sylvia, even when in heat, is matter-of-fact and forthright. When she curses out a cat, she’s foul-mouthed but only then, and it’s hilarious.

And that’s important because Greg is a rather buttoned-up guy and so Sylvia may well be his perfect pet. Eventually, Kate seems to see this and grudgingly allows him to have some quality time with the dog she wants him to give away. In Act Two she devises a plan that should spell the end of the spell, and we face an effectively emotional farewell. At this point, Sylvia does sound like a young woman led on by a philandering married man’s promises of a permanent relationship, but that easy identification doesn’t undermine the feeling of actual regret, which Holland depicts well.

Greg (Dennis Holland), Sylvia (Bethany Fitzgerald) in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at MTC (photo by Alex Mongillo)

Taking place in a tasteful living-room, with, on a raised space behind, some benches with an attractive 3-D city skyline as backdrop, MTC’s Sylvia is—like the word of praise for many a mutt—companionable. If it stirs thoughts about the mystery of attachment, all the better. A dog, after all, can never be accused of ulterior motives. She might say, with the author George Sand, “there is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.” And that two random, interspecies strangers should meet and find that is the joy and sorrow of Sylvia. Don’t be afraid to love.

Sylvia (Bethany Fitzgerald) in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at MTC (photo by Alex Mongillo)

Sylvia
By A.R. Gurney
Directed by Kevin Connors

Scenic Design: Jessie Lizotte; Lighting Design: RJ Romeo; Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Sound Design: Will Atkin; Prop Design: Merrie Deitch; Fight Staging: Dan O’Driscoll; Stage Manager: Gary Betsworth

Cast: Carole Dell’Aquila, Bethany Fitzgerald, Dennis Holland, Jim Schilling

Music Theatre of Connecticut
February 7-23, 2020

Hair Today . . .

Review of Steel Magnolias, Music Theatre of Connecticut

The first thing to take in about the production of Steel Magnolias at Music Theater of Connecticut is how Jessie Lizotte’s set design has opened up the playing space, creating a beauty salon with several work areas, a reception desk, a waiting area, a hair dryer, and two doors, one inner and one to the outside. The shop is run by Truvy (Raissa Katona Bennett) in what was formerly a carport on her property and it provides an isle of sanity for a coterie of women in the town who drop in regularly to get their hair done and to chat about whatever might be going on in the town of Chinquapin, Louisiana.

Directed by Pamela Hill, this fine ensemble cast captures the rhythms of everyday talk in Robert Harling’s script and the movements about the shop, as side conversations and common discussions join, overlap or conflict, is vividly enacted. Which is a good thing because all the action takes place in the shop and it’s important we feel as at home there as these women do. There’s nothing claustrophobic or phony about Truvy’s. It is an impressive and effective space in which to watch this discursive comedy-drama unfold.

M’Lynn (Kaia Monroe), Annelle (Rachel Rival), Truvy (Raissa Katona Bennett), Shelby (Andrea Lynn Green) in MTC Mainstage production of Steel Magnolias (photo by Heather Hayes)

Taking place in two Acts, each with two scenes, the play’s chattiness provides a context for four key moments in the life of Shelby Eatenton (Andrea Lynn Green), the daughter of M’Lynn (Kaia Monroe) who is one of the mainstays at Truvy’s, along with Clairee Belcher (Cynthia Hannah), widow of the late mayor, and Ouiser Bourdeaux (Kirsti Carnahan), the local curmudgeon. In the first scene, we see preparations for Shelby’s marriage that afternoon and meet, as do the women, Annelle Dupuy-DeSoto, a new hairdresser Truvy hired more from pity than need. The young woman, it emerges, has been abandoned by her husband and is living at a rooming-house. Soon she is welcome as one of group, and changes in her status—from abandoned to engaged to expectant mother—mark the passage of time over the course of the play.

Clairee (Cynthia Hannah), foreground, Annelle (Rachel Rival), Ouiser (Kirsti Carnahan), background in MTC Mainstage production of Steel Magnolias (photo by Heather Hayes)

In that first scene we learn that Shelby has diabetes when she undergoes a hyperglycemic episode, which is dramatic but easily coped with. The main tension seems to be between Shelby’s “get on with life” attitude and her mother’s pricklier concerns. Monroe makes M’Lynn seem something of a wet blanket, more apt to be gently sarcastic rather than merry. The merriest is Clairee, who will do just about anything to get a rise out of Ouiser, her foil. Carnahan and Hannah do a lot to keep things lively. As Truvy, Bennett’s Dolly Parton-style hairdo makes her look brassier than she is; there’s a genuine openness in her dealings with Rachel, who, as played by Rival, is very sweet but not that bright. The main figure is Shelby, and Andrea Lynn Green, who played the cunning Maggie the Cat in MTC’s sharp Cat on a Hot Tin Roof last season, plays her as a young woman with a lot on her mind, clearly used to being the young one doted on by these older ladies. The big reveal at the end of Act One shows us that she will live her own life, even if it kills her.

Shelby (Andrea Lynn Green) in MTC Mainstage production of Steel Magnolias (photo by Heather Hayes)

In Act Two we learn of the consequences of Shelby’s decision to have a child despite her doctor’s warnings and against M’Lynn’s wishes. The first scene of Act Two, a year and a half since the end of Act One, seems to mark life as usual, except that Shelby, as everyone learns to their shock and concern, needs her mother in a very particular way, and that creates a spotlight for M’Lynn as she continues to be essential in her daughter’s life. Green makes Shelby’s exit touching as she manages to think of others while facing major surgery. The final act gives M’Lynn the focus as she has to accept her daughter’s outlook and believe it is for the best. Monroe keeps M’Lynn tightly wound so that her breakdown is the more powerful, the kind of letting go and recovery that only happens with trusted friends.

Truvy (Raissa Katona Bennett), M’Lynn (Kaia Monroe) in MTC Mainstage production of Steel Magnolias (photo by Heather Hayes)

Steel Magnolias is noted, I suspect, for its ability to bring out tears and hankies. Truvy says that one of the best emotions is “laughter through tears” and that’s the feeling the play aims for. While only M’Lynn and Shelby are family, these six women provide a family-like space for each other, a context of wisecracks and pep-talks and shared confidences that allows for both laughter and tears. M’Lynn, who the others think of as tough, can only go so soft; Clairee, the joker, has to find something to make the others laugh; Ouiser, who has “been in a very bad mood for forty years,” can’t go too touchy-feely. It’s a fine line of playing as cast in the little company they have created, with Truvy as the one who, no matter what’s going down, has to help the ladies find a look to meet it with. It’s a play about life, loss, love, and the importance of familiar routine played to perfection with this perfectly chosen cast.

Steel Magnolias
By Robert Harling
Directed by Pamela Hill

Scenic Design: Jessie Lizotte; Lighting Design: RJ Romeo; Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Sound Design: Will Atkin; Prop Design: Merrie Deitch; Hair Design: Peggi De La Cruz; Stage Manager: Jim Schilling

Cast: Raissa Katona Bennett, Kirsti Carnahan, Andrea Lynn Green, Cynthia Hannah, Kaia Monroe, Rachel Rival

Music Theatre of Connecticut
November 8-24, 2019

Only in America

Review of Ragtime, The Musical, Music Theater of Connecticut

Terrence McNally packs much history and drama into the Book for Ragtime, The Musical, adapted from E. L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel. And in its current production, director Kevin Connors dauntlessly packs a cast of fifteen and two pianists onto the small stage at MTC Mainstage in Norwalk to deliver a show that proves that even epic musicals can be scaled down and work well. And that’s largely due to Jessie Lizotte’s multilayered set.

The MTC show’s vitality is powerful and the diverse cast—depicting interlocking stories of New Rochelle WASPs, Harlem-based African Americans, and recent Jewish immigrants—puts across a range of songs, from the jaunty to the heart-wrenching, with great brio. As musical drama, Ragtime, which debuted in the late 1990s, is better in its parts than as a whole, as the story’s melodrama sits oddly within its sprawling treatment of early twentieth-century hot topics, and its politics, while generally progressive, feel tainted by a quaint neoliberalism.

Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Ezekiel Andrew), Booker T. Washington (Brian Demar Jones), Sarah’s Friend (Kanova Latrice Johnson) in MTC Mainstage’s Ragtime (photos by Joe Landry) (rear: David Wolfson, conductor/music director, and Mark Ceppetelli, second piano)

Ragtime, the African American musical form that exploded into popularity in the early decades of the twentieth century, becomes both a style and theme: the music in the air compels new feelings,  new relations, new possibilities. For the three main groups of characters, the new century has much to offer—not least the new Model T Ford and motion pictures—and ragtime, with its strong syncopation and innovative flair, is the soundtrack to the era, as detailed by the company in “New Music.”

Sarah (Soara-Joye Ross), Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Ezekiel Andrew), center, and the cast of Ragtime

With Music by Stephen Flaherty and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, the musical is at its best when giving us glimpses of colorful material that, while entertaining, is largely for purposes of historical exposition. The entire score is ably rendered on twin pianos by conductor/music director David Wolfson and second pianist Mark Cepperelli, featuring grand set-pieces such as “Crime of the Century,” about the early tabloid sensation/showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (Jessica Molly Schwartz) whose jealous lover killed another man over her, or “Henry Ford,” in which the famed inventor and businessman, played by Jeff Gurner, details his methods, or, in Act Two, when Jewish immigrant Tateh (Frank Mastrone), now styled as film impresario Baron Ashkenazy, sets forth the rationale of “Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Inc.”, or when Younger Brother (Jacob Sundlie), from the New Rochelle family, gushes over “The Night Emma Goldman Spoke at Union Square”—Goldman, the fierce anarchist, is played with gutsy force by Mia Scarpa. These songs do much to maintain Doctorow’s effort to incorporate news stories and such newsworthy individuals as escape artist Harry Houdini (Christian Cardozo), African-American intellectual Booker T. Washington (Brian Demar Jones), and tycoon J. P. Morgan (Bill Nabel) into a narrative of how the New York area could both empower ambition and destroy dreams.

Mother (Juliet Lambert Pratt)

McNally’s plot centers on Mother (Juliet Lambert Pratt), as she’s the lynchpin that brings together the immigrant story and the African American story. As a conscientious society lady, Pratt is a high caliber asset of the show, showing both a wifely detachment from her paternalistic husband (Dennis Holland) and a willingness to follow the burgeoning attachments that form when she lets them. Her heartfelt rendition of “Back to Before” is a highpoint of Act 2 and she seems born for the period costumes by Diane Vanderkroef.

Sarah (Soara-Joye Ross)

Finding an abandoned black child in her garden, Mother takes in the orphan and eventually Sarah (Soara-Joye Ross), the child’s distressed mother, as well, then abets the child’s father, ragtime virtuoso Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Ezekiel Andrew) as he pays courtship. That’s the uplifting story of Act 1, brought to rapturous realization in the duet between Ross and Andrew, “Wheels of a Dream,” that feels like an Act 1 curtain but isn’t. Additional elements are Mother’s dignified flirtation with Tateh as both, with their respective children—charmingly enacted by Ari Zimmer and Ryan Ryan (or Hannah Pressman)—take a train out of New York. The anti-immigrant hostility of the times—and ours—creates a struggle for Tateh while the virulent racism endemic to the U.S. delivers an insult to Coalhouse through the destruction of his prized Model T. by volunteer firemen.

Tateh (Frank Mastrone) and his daughter (Hannah Pressman)

As Act 2 opens, newly radicalized Younger Brother, a fireworks manufacturer, is helping Coalhouse and his followers to blow up things in a wave of anti-capitalist, antiracist terrorism. The carnage is offstage, which lets us overlook Coalhouse’s violence, while a jarring act of violence aimed at Sarah threatens to derail the busy story. As Sarah, Soara-Joye Ross delivers Act 1’s “Your Daddy’s Son” with such incredible power that we may well be disappointed to learn what the plot has in store for her. So it goes. The story drives toward its benign vision of children—white and black, Jew and gentile—playing together agreeably, though the fact that the nonwhite parents are looking on from heaven might give us pause.

Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Ezekiel Andrew)

As Coalhouse, Ezekiel Andrew plays both pride and humility that become righteous indignation. He has great energy and a big voice, which helps greatly in a production where sometimes the pianos overpower the singers—not helped (when I attended) by some issues with the mics that created static and seemed to lose some singers in the big choral numbers. Soara-Joye Ross and Juliet Lambert Pratt add greatly to the vocal strengths on hand, with Kanova Latrice Johnson delivering Act 1’s impassioned closer, “Till We Reach That Day.” Frank Mastrone is more endearing as Baron Ashkenazy than as Tateh whose beard only serves to look remarkably fake. Jessica Molly Schwartz does well with an ironic rendering of Evelyn Nesbitt’s obvious cheesecake function, and Broadway veteran Bill Nabel adds the requisite patrician sangfroid to J.P. Morgan, even when his beloved library is being held for ransom. As Booker T. Washington, Brian Demar Jones has plenty of panache, and Christian Cardozo’s Houdini, we might imagine, would like to escape into a show where he’s something more than a famous Italian American.

Father (Dennis Holland), seated, and his son (Ari Zimmer) and the male cast of Ragtime

Finally, a word about Dennis Holland as Father. This is a role that could easily be a joke. One moment he’s off to the North Pole with Robert Peary, then he’s receiving a frosty welcome to his home, now a nursery, where an African American couple he never met is plying ragtime and romance in the parlor; later, he has to make man-to-man chat with Coalhouse while playing well-meaning hostage, but not before he takes his son out to a ballgame for some filial bonding, only to find it’s overrun by the kind of crass American types our culture never tires of caricaturing (the song, “What a Game,” is a moment of light fun in the overwrought Act 2). Ultimately, Father goes down with the Lusitania! Through it all Holland maintains the thoughtful dignity of someone who just doesn’t get it yet knows there is something to get. It’s just that, for a little while at least, he thought he had it. All. It’s a nicely rendered character-turn in a show more concerned with songs than characterization.

Once again, MTC’s Kevin Connors shows what can be done on a small-scale with shows that could easily overwhelm a less resourceful director. His love for theater shows in every aspect of this involving Ragtime. The intimacy of staging makes this show of many moving parts—there’s even a makeshift Model T involved—even more moving.

Ragtime, The Musical
Book by Terrence McNally
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Based on the novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
Directed by Kevin Connors
Musical Direction by David Wolfson

Scenic Design: Jessie Lizotte; Lighting and Projection Design: RJ Romeo; Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Sound Design: Will Atkin; Props Design: Merrie Deitch; Wig Design: Will Doughty; Fight Choreographer: Dan O’Driscoll; Production Assistant: Charlie Zuckerman; Musical Staging: Chris McNiff; Stage Manager: Jim Schilling

Musicians: David Wolfson, conductor/piano; Mark Ceppetelli, second piano

Cast: Ezekiel Andrews; Christian Cardozo; Ari Frimmer; Jeff Gurner; Dennis Holland; Kanova Latrice Johnson; Brian Demar Jones; Frank Mastrone; Bill Nabel; Juliet Lambert Pratt; Hannah Pressman; Soara-Joye Ross; Ryan Ryan; Mia Scarpa; Jessica Molly Schwartz; Jacob Sundlie

MTC Mainstage
Music Theatre of Connecticut
September 27-October 13, 2019

Mother Knows Best

Review of Gypsy, Music Theater of Connecticut

Gypsy, “A Musical Fable suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee,” is a popular musical that depends upon the quality of the actor playing Momma Rose—mother of Gypsy Rose Lee—to succeed. In MTC’s production, Kirsti Carnahan does the show proud, giving us a Rose who, though still as overbearing and relentless as the part calls for, is comical, touching and, ultimately winning. And that helps make this big show in a small space shine.

I don’t think Madame Rose is always played so appealingly. The part was long associated with Ethel Merman, who I can’t imagine anyone finding “touching,” and in the Hollywood film, which I watched recently, Rosalind Russell, besides being unable to sing with real feeling, is mostly insufferable. Carnahan’s Rose reminds me more than a little of the actress/mother Shirley MacLaine plays in Postcards from the Edge—which is to say, pushy and willing to use self-pity artfully, but also affecting and full of fun.

Kirsti Carnahan as Rose (photo: Joe Landry)

The big climactic number—“Rose’s Turn,” including the reprise of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”—finds Rose alone with her fantasies of fame and delivers plenty of sizzle, and Carnahan is also charming when Rose needs to be, as in “Small World,” her courtship of agent and beau Herbie (Paul Binotto). In the scenes when Rose goes ballistic over thwarted plans, director Kevin Conners lets us see how extreme Rose can be, but with a sense of her as a passionate woman with a mission, not as some kind of show-biz monster mom. And that’s all to the good.

June (Carissa Marisso) and Louise (Kate Simone) (photo: Joe Landry)

As June and Louise, the hapless, grown daughters forced to play out mom’s insistent drive to make them stars, Carissa Massaro and Kate Simone put across “If Momma Was Married” with plenty of verve, Massaro strong on attitude, and in the transformation from tomboyish Louise to stylish Gypsy, Simone shows a gradual, no-nonsense grasp of practicalities that gives some shape to an easily overshadowed role. Thankfully, Becky Timms’ choreography lets us see Gypsy’s wit in her striptease numbers, with accent on the “tease.”

Young Tulsa (Charlie Pelletier), Rose (Kirsti Carnahan), Baby June (Abby Sara Dahan) (photo: Joe Landry)

As the little wind-up toys that the sisters begin as, Abby Sara Dahan (as Baby June) and Natalie Steele (as Baby Louise) make Mama’s silly routines better than they might be—with Dahan’s comic presence making the most of Baby June’s bid for glory. As the supporting dancers, Joe Grandy (as Tulsa) gets a nice tap routine that almost steals away Louise’s heart. While, as the long-suffering Herbie, Binotto is likeable if not very forceful. Special kudos to Jodi Stevens, always a treat, as Mazeppa, the stripper with a way with a horn, while Marca Leigh and Jeri Kansas also provide colorful support, making “You Gotta Get a Gimmick” the crowd-pleaser it’s meant to be.

Tessie Tura (Jeri Kansas), Mazeppa (Jodi Stevens), Electra (Marca Leigh) (photo: Joe Landry)

In many ways, this small scale production of Gypsy might prove more satisfying than a larger production. The feel of the backstage world and the effort to create a plausible entertainment that are so important to the story are very much in evidence. The story’s subtext about how vaudeville permitted a certain kind of DIY professionalism to flourish, giving way—in these characters’ lifetimes—to few respectable outlets also feels germane to the world of regional theatrics. The irony of Gypsy’s story is that she achieved the stardom her mother dreamed of, but not in the desired format. But even there, the bias against burlesque can seem quaint to us now when so much show-biz is all about showing it all.

Gypsy is a gutsy take on making good of a downward spiral, and MTC’s Gypsy is a tasteful take on the ups-and-downs odyssey of Momma Rose and her daughter.

Gypsy, A Musical Fable
Book by Arthur Laurents
Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Original Production by David Merrick & Leland Hayward, directed choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Directed by Kevin Connors

Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Wigs: Peggi De La Cruz; Set Design: Carl Tallent; Lighting Design: Michael Blagys; Choreography: Becky Timms; Musical Direction: Thomas Martin Conroy; Stage Manager: Jim Schilling

Musicians: Piano/Conductor: Thomas Martin Conroy; Second keyboard: Luke McGuinness; Drums: Chris Johnson; Reeds: Gary Ruggiero

Cast: Paul Binotto, Kirsti Carnahan, Brittany Cattaruzza, Joe Grandy, Jeri Kansas, Marca Leigh, Carissa Massaro, Peter McClung, Chris McNiff, Abigial Root, Kate Simone, Jodi Stevens; and featuring: Abby Sara Dahan, Jonah Frimmer, Charlie Pelleteir, Natalie Steele

Music Theater of Connecticut, MTC Mainstage
September 9-25, 2016