[NEohioPAL] Berko review: ME AND MY GIRL (Mercury Summer Stock)

[Roy Berko]

‘ME AND MY GAL,’ Mercury
Summer Stock’s attempt at farce
 
Roy Berko
 
(Member, American Theatre
Critics Association)
 
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On the surface,
‘ME AND MY GIRL,’ which is now on stage at Mercury Summer Stock, appears to be
a light, escapist show that should be easy to stage, since its goal is out and
out fun.  Nothing could be further
from the truth.   The script
is farce, and to make it more difficult, British farce.  That style of theatre is very, very
difficult to pull off well.  It
takes good underplaying, exquisite timing, and the perfect balance between
realism and fantasy.
This musical tale
concerns a cockney lad who inherits an earldom when his aristocratic father,
who has had an affair with the lad’s working class mother, dies.  Billy is tracked down, and the family
finds out, much to their snobbish horror, that the only male heir, is everything
they abhor….gross, out spoken and from Lambeth, a low class area of
London.  Chaos ensues, until, of
course, all can live happily ever after, with the
various romantic confusions settled nicely. 
The
musical, with book and lyrics by L. Arthur Rose and Douglas Furber, and music
by Noel Gay, had its original London production in 1937, and ran four
years.  A revised London version
had an even longer run in 1985 and the Broadway version, which opened in 1986,
ran 1,420 performances.
Interestingly,
the production’s show stopper, “The Lambeth Walk”, became
a political cause, when in 1938, The London Times stated, “While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances — to The
Lambeth Walk.”
The Mercury production tries
hard to create the right feel for the show.  Maybe it tries too hard.  Director Pierre-Jacques Brault pulls out all the stops, and
shtick follows shtick which follows shtick.  Normally, in British farce, the director lets the material
develop its own image.  Here Brault
doesn’t seem to trust the script’s natural fun and inserts puppets, bubbles,
over exaggeration of characters, use of every stereotype he could think of, and
putting his lead actor in physical danger to do prat fall after prat fall. 
Does
he succeed?  Depends on your
viewpoint.  The audience, the night
I saw the show, laughed and laughed (but didn’t give it the traditional Mercury
standing ovation).  The elderly man
sitting behind me audibly repeated every gimmick to his wife between
giggles.  On the other hand, what
would have happened if Brault had let the book and lyrics speak for
themselves?  As Billy, the lead
character might say, “Dun’t knuw.  Din’t see et.”
His
choreography is often quite clever, though some of the dancers struggle to do
the steps without verbally counting.
Mercury
Summer Theatre, though it bills itself as a “professionally based,” theatre is, for all practical purposes, an
amateur community theatre populated by high school and college kids, with one
professional thrown in, along with some adults of various theatrical
backgrounds.  This makes the acting
pool rather inexperienced.  Considering that, Brault gets some good performances.
Jennifer Myor
sparkles as Sally, Bill’s “girl.”  She has a nice singing voice, good stage presence, and a nice touch with
humor.  Cleveland favorite, Hester
Lewellen, has the right airs as Maria, Bill’s stuffy aunt.   Cindi Verbelun has a cute bit as
Joan of Arc.
Brian Marshall,
the only equity member of the cast, is very talented, but, in this role seems
to have no restraint.  He sings and
dances well, but  he literally
throws himself all over the stage in attempts at humor.  He did not need to be all Three Stooges
rolled into one.
Some of the others
feign and exaggerate; acting, rather than reacting to their lines and
motivations.
The sets and,
costumes, considering the minimal budget the theatre has, are quite
impressive.  Especially creative
are the Pearly costumes, with their numerous button patterns.
Eddie Carney does
a nice job of musical direction and his orchestra is very good.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:   If you love slapstick and a
production full of uncontrolled shticks, you’ll appreciate Mercury’s ‘ME AND MY
GIRL.’
 
‘ME AND GIRL’
runs through August 22 at Parma Little Theatre.  For tickets call 216-731-5862.