[NEohioPAL] Review of "Guys on Ice" at Actors' Summit

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

Ice fishing musical ‘Guys on Ice’ more bait than bite, but its charm is reeling



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics



It’s not like we weren’t warned.



In the playbill’s “Notes from the Director,” MaryJo Alexander informs us that the show we’re about to see is “not Shakespeare or Sondheim.”  



And during the pre-show announcements, after we’ve been reminded that photographs are forbidden and season subscriptions to Actors’ Summit are available, Alexander encourages the audience to groan in unison at the handful of bad fish jokes she tells.  “Why are fish so smart?  They’ve been schooled.”



And so the tone has been set for the evening’s entertainment, which is a light-weight musical comedy by Fred Alley and James Kaplan called “Guys on Ice.”  And, yes, the words are not poetry, the songs are not stellar, and the humor certainly produces inarticulate cries of disapproval and disappointment more often than not.  



But under Alexander’s direction, this odd collection of caricatures, novelty numbers and one-liners about hooks, lines and sinkers comes across as remarkably charming.  

  

For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.  


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