[NEohioPAL] Review of "Annie Get Your Gun" by Garfield Players

[Bob Abelman]

Garfield Players' 'Annie Get Your Gun' is loaded with talent

Bob Abelman

 

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

The Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier

Member, American Theatre Critics Association 

 

This review will appear in the Times papers on 2/23/12

 

Like the larger-than-life, full-color posters used to promote the Wild West Shows of the 1880s, "Annie Get Your Gun" is a big, broadly painted musical comedy relic from the 1940s.

 

The story is a highly fictionalized account of real life old west sharpshooter Annie Oakley.  After leaving a rustic, back woods existence to join Buffalo Bill's travelling Wild West Show, she falls hopelessly in love with smooth-talking Frank Butler, the show's featured marksman.  When Annie becomes the main attraction, Frank's ego gets bruised and the two part ways, only to be reunited in traditional Broadway fashion: a huge production number. 

 

As an old-fashioned piece of musical theater, "Annie Get Your Gun" offers characters who are one-dimensional caricatures, dialogue that largely serves to segue from one song to the next, and the classic "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl" scenario played out within a creaky storyline written by Herbert and Dorothy Fields.

 

The thing is, there is something quite charming and genuinely endearing about relics with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.  This show boasts of some of the most enduring show tunes ever created, such as "There's No Business Like Show Business," "Anything You Can Do," and "They Say It's Wonderful."  Less remembered but one of the show's most gorgeous songs is "Moonshine Lullaby," sung by Annie to her three young siblings.  

 

In fact, these songs are the show's salvation.  They also serve as a wonderful showcase for the performer playing Annie, who is featured in nearly every musical number.  Annie was played by legendary Ethel Merman in the original 1946 Broadway production and Mary Martin on tour.  In the show's 1999 Broadway revival, Bernadette Peter's had the title role.  While this role didn't establish their star-status, it certainly solidified it.

 

The modest, community theater production currently being staged by the Garfield Players has found the right lead players in Caitlin Hamm and Justin Green.  

 

Hamm possesses an absolutely gorgeous voice that fully embraces Irving Berlin's melodic songs while maintaining Annie's rough-and-tumble personality.  Green, as Frank, has an exceptional voice as well, and achieves just the right level of charm and slick virility to go with it.  One never tires of hearing these two sing, although the seven-piece orchestra under Angela Bruzina's direction runs out of steam toward the end of Act 1.  It fully recovers for Act 2.

 

While there is considerable variability in those sporting supporting and ensemble roles, a fine performance is turned in by Claire Connelly as Dolly, Frank's brazen assistant.  Stephen Rieger and Carleigh Spence, as the naïve young lovers Tommy and Winnie, and the trio of cowboys that meanders in and out of "Moonshine Lullaby"-Mark Snyder, Zach Cummins, and Rieger-are adorable.  Jim Ray brings great energy to Buffalo Bill.

 

The monumental task of staging a big show like this is made even more so by the cavernous stage on which it appears.  Heather DePietro's isolated set pieces, while attractive, do little to cut the stage into manageable spaces or provide viable entrance ways and exits.  This forces choreographer Jessica Atwood and director Jim Jerrell to devote much of their time and expertise to just getting people on stage, in position, and then off again in full view.  All this extraneous movement slows down the proceedings.

 

Still, this production of "Annie Get Your Gun" is pretty to look at and an absolute pleasure to listen to.  It continues through February 26 at the Garfield Heights High School Center for Performing Arts in Garfield Heights.  For tickets, which are $14, contact 216-475-8313.
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