[NEohioPAL] Review: You Can't Take It With You, Chautauqua

[Lawrence Seman]

Review
You Can't Take It With You
Chautauqua
Larry Seman
 
Start with a Pulitzer Prize-winning script by Kaufman & Hart, sprinkle with some outrageous characters and you should have a solid summer stock winner. But as the theatre world all too well knows this formula has no guarantee. Pity that, but stuff does happen and the Chautauqua Theater Company wanders off the rails for too much of the time in a valiant attempt to breath life into a frankly sclerotic 1936 script. The play was lauded as a fresh comic breeze when it debuted on Broadway, however for that breeze to blow as hilarious in 2010 more than a few windows need to be opened.
 
The play focuses on the Sycamore family which is a collection of free spirits and quirky thinkers, artists of a sort, who all who march to a different drummer. The clan Sycamore do not exhibit any real talent for their chosen diversions but give it their best shot for the grandest reason of all: it happens to be fun. One of the daughters of this tribe is not wired to behave in this interesting but off-beat way and therein lies the crux of the story as she falls for the scion of a Wall Street stuffed shirt. As per civilized behavior dictates the families are scheduled to meet and greet and that collision of life styles provides most of the fireworks in the second Act of the production.
 
When relationships don't gel (I didn't believe the Sycamores were even married) and movement appears tentative or practiced (too much grouping like a Greek chorus) the usual suspect is over-directing. Director Paul Mullins has the credentials and perhaps that's what led him to believe he could willfully rescue this piece off of life support. As with any attempt to place, push, and pull every bit of movement and mannerism the effect is to leach the spontaneity right out of the effort. Mild manners should not be on the menu for this dish: it is absolutely crucial when the fare is bland to lay on the hot sauce. 
 
Unfortunately Act I set in motion no tension between the staid world of the so-called "normal" boring life and the wonderful quirkiness of a Harpo Marxian gang's counterpoint. The result unwittingly left pockets of dead air as the harum-scarum buffoonery was quietly subsumed in a misplaced respect for the text and a seeming aversion to jazz things up except for some staged vaudeville settings which were amusing but very much telegraphed. 
 
Act II thankfully recovered the belly laughs that were supposed to be set up earlier but arrived a bit late in the day and then only through the experienced techniques of the cast's professionals.
 
In fairness The Chautauqua Company follows the tradition of the Institute that supports it as a teaching as well as professional organization and at least half of the players are graduate students or newly minted performers. I have no doubt they will survive just fine as they all can act quite well. Also they should have learned some valuable lessons in how to overcome some stifling if well intentioned instructions.
 
One way is to go right over the top of them as did Andrew Weems who gives the insanely emotive Boris Kolenkhov a marvelous comic turn. Playing the ex-patriot Russian ballet master, wrestling aficionado, and chum to dispossessed royalty Mr. Weems honors his responsibility to the blocking but leaves no doubt that he has popped the cork on the fizz of his intentions. There is so much more to playing a nutty character than a few silly gestures, to make it work you need the whole package and Weems special delivers the goods.
 
At the other end of the spectrum the big shot stock broker Mr. Kirby, is superbly done by Stephen Pelinski expertly using a low ball physicality for his large frame. Mr. Pelinski received more guffaws from his amped up nonverbal reactions than his lines gave him. At one point his quizzical looks while sitting on the sofa lit a fire right across the stage.

Set Designer, Lee Savage makes good use of the Bratton Theatre's space providing ample leg room for all of the Sycamore individual hobbies to unfold, and Costume Designer, Alixandra Gage Englund created some very fine 30's New York looks.
 
What Kaufman & Hart were playing with here is the notion that eccentricity lies in the eye of the beholder and one person's nonconformism might very well be someone else's cherished ideal. If there's comedy in that it's not because it's an intellectual exercise but for the better reason that we all can plead guilty to: being more privately silly than we publicly let on. And that's a marvelous premise with which to stage a play so don't toss it all in the dust bin of history just yet, just remember that the main caveat in doing so requires a foot loose and fancy free attitude just like singing in the shower.
 
Larry


      
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