TOPIC: STAGE
Cortland Repertory’s Les Miserables runs Wednesday, July 16, 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, July 17, through Saturday, July 19, 7:30 TAKE p.m.; Sunday, July 20, 2 p.m.; Tuesday, July 22, 7:30 p.m.; and Wednesday, July 23, 2 and 7:30 p.m.
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By James MacKillop
A Can’t Miss Les Miz
Cast members of Merry-GoRound’s Damn Yankees. Photo by Isaac James.
REVIEW This week’s showtimes are Wednesday, July 16, 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, July 17. 7:30 p.m.; Friday, July 18, and Saturday, July 19, 8 p.m.; Monday, July 21, 7:30 p.m.; Tuesday, July 22, and Wednesday, July 23, 2 and 7:30 p.m.
A GRAND SLAM FOR DAMN YANKEES
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hat sturdy evergreen built on a Faustian pact, Damn Yankees remains popular for many good reasons. The Richard Adler-Jerry Ross score, one of golden Broadway’s last shouts before the arrival of Elvis, is as good as new under Corinne Aquilina’s musical direction in this revival at Auburn’s Merry-Go-Round Playhouse (running through July 30). All the players for the sad-sack Washington Senators comprise an enlarged male chorus. No matter how they perform on the field, they must be fleet and precise on stage. Enter Tony Award-winning choreographer Scott Wise, who shows us what’s what in the first big production number, “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.,” where the team is taunted by nosey girl reporter Gloria Thorpe (Kristen Gehling). Musically, it’s perhaps the least memorable song of the show, but Wise cleverly turns it into a visual dazzler, in which a coach’s hand signals become dance movements. Steps and leaps grow out of the athletics of the game. Putting some spritz into the second theme of the show, Eisenhower-era marital fidelity, becomes the job of director David Lowenstein. Paunchy Joe Boyd (Bill Nolte) might sell his soul to the devil, named Mr. Applegate (Richard B. Watson), to help the Senators win the pennant, but he never stops yearning for his abandoned wife Meg (Leslie Beck-
er). Nolte of the Goodspeed Opera House gives old Joe a solid plausibility lacking in other productions, while Becker makes Meg an enticing Betty Crocker. Meanwhile, devilish temptress Lola (Kate Marilley) has become an unanticipated comedienne, putting a kind of mock Carmen Miranda spin on the memorable “Whatever Lola Wants.” There’s real affection in her duet, “Two Lost Souls,” with hunky jock Joe Hardy (Aaron Young). The casting of Young, a multi-threat WASP dreamboat who sings “A Man Doesn’t Know,” implies old Joe got quite a payoff from his satanic bargain. The two best songs in the show are the ones we all remember. “Heart” is richly delivered by Tom Flagg as Coach Van Buren. And the real show-stopper is Applegate’s soft-shoe, “Those Were the Good Old Days.” Richard B. Watson’s Applegate, a devil as ingratiating as a game show host, steals many of the best lines. SNT
Director Sam Scalamoni may not have a long history with Cortland Repertory Theatre, but he is just the man to figure out how to stage the epic musical Les Misérables (running through July 26) in the up-close-and-personal space of the Little York Lake Pavilion. One is to have the cast of 28 thundering down the stairways so that the world’s most popular musical seems to have swallowed the audience. The pit orchestra, under music director Joel Gelpe, has been enlarged to eight players, including two brasses and three woodwinds. The iconic barricades of the revolutionaries at the end of the first act do not appear. Instead Scalamoni has the mob march toward the audience in a flying wedge in “One Day More,” a breath-stopping moment. Even though the title translates as “the poor,” Wendi R. Zea’s costumes guarantee that the three-hour performance offers continuing visual treats. Consider the first act’s production number “Master of the House” at the filthy innkeeper Thenadier’s place. With Eric Behnke’s dappled lighting design, the waltzing vulgarians look like a Pieter Brueghel painting come to life. CRT has packed the program with muscular voices for all the top roles. Baritone Timothy John Smith takes on many colors as Jean Valjean, the most moving in the upper ranges of the tender lullaby, “Bring Him Home.” Antoine L. Smith’s Javert reaches Mephistophelean depths. Delicate Kailey Prior breaks hearts with “I Dreamed a Dream.” And two contrasting sopranos, Michaela Vine as the angelic grown Cosette and Kelsey Thompson as the streetwise Eponine, divide the second act. It’s one of Cortland Rep’s best productions ever.
syracusenewtimes.com | 07.16.14 - 07.22.14
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