|
|
You Can't Take it With You
By Melinda Schupmann
This eighth season opener is a Pulitzer Prize winning story about a group of eccentrics living in New York City in the 1930's. Written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufmann, who collaborated successfully with such plays as Once in a Lifetime and The Man Who Came to Dinner, it was a charming vehicle for a stable of character actors like Josephine Hull and Henry Travers. Maybe America was really like that in those days, or maybe we want to see them through a golden haze of nostalgia. If so, then Director Chris Hart, son of the author, has succeeded in his mission. By taking no risks with his production, though, he has missed the snap and crackle of the original.
The setting is a large house inhabited by Grandpa (Alan Young), the Sycamores (Bonnie Bailey-Reed, Gary Ballard), their daughter Alice (Nan McNamara), Essie and Ed (Victoria Hoffman, Jeff McGrail), Mr. DePinna (Rodney Gober,) and Rheba the maid (Virginia Watson.) Alice has fallen in love with her boss' son, Tony Kirby (John Allsopp). Lovingly realizing how off-kilter everyone is, she reluctantly plans a dinner party to help Tony's society parents (JoAnn Campanella, David Schall) get acquainted with their future in-laws. However thin this premise is, in Kaufmann/Hart's hands, it was a treasure. The 1990's dilemma is how to bring to life the farcical elements without sacrificing the underlying decency of the characters.
The slow-moving tempo that Director Hart set is its greatest weakness. The amiable cast led by Jones, almost a little too understated, never quite finds its rhythm. Watson and her boyfriend Donald (Eddie Hailey) enhance the humor, and a wonderfully theatrical Suzanne Friedline in the dual role of Olga/ Gay Wellington) really steals the show. Schall is suitably pompous as the patriarch with a heart of gold. The young lovers are pleasant but have little chemistry.
The set by Burris Jackes, lights by the ubiquitous Kathi O'Donohue, and costumes by Shon Le Blanc are all first rate. Serviceable, it is going to please but not excite the audience.
You Can't Take it With You, presented by Actors Coop, 1760 N. Gower, Hollywood. (323)- 462-8460. Thurs-Sat. at 8, Sun. at 2:30. NOW EXTENDED UNTIL DECEMBER 12.
$13-17.
|
|
|
|
