Castle Perilous

Allyn Burrows and Melis Aker in I Capture the Castle.

Theatre people are always singing the praises of taking a risk.  Risk, risk, risk.  It's all about risk!

But there's nothing more painful than watching a large number of talented people take a big risk that doesn't pan out.  And I'm afraid that is basically what has happened up at Stoneham with I Capture the Castle (through Sunday only)  The cast is talented, the set impressive (and expensive!), the costumes and lighting evocative.  Even the music is memorable. But the play - adapted by Dodie Smith (of 101 Dalmations fame) from her own 1948 novel - is simply too flawed for anybody to put over, and there's something almost painfully Sisyphean about this talented crew's attempt to get the show moving.

In the end, artistic director Weylin Symes really should have been able to predict this, but I can also see how he might been blinded by the poetry of Smith's prose. This kind of bewitching romance held the British in its sway for much of the first half of the twentieth century: a hybrid of the pastoral and the gothic, it was basically a feminine coming-of-age story, yet also traded in benign fantasy and "fancy" - its characters encountered full moons, ruins, and crashing waves with astonishing regularity (often on midsummer eve or Hallowe'en), and were often quite sure they must have seen spirits or sprites, to boot.  The genre probably reached its fullest flowering in a charming handful of Michael Powell movies, but the novel I Capture the Castle is a pretty good avatar of the form, this time genially cut with a Shavian bemusement regarding bohemianism and social class.

Melis Aker as Cassandra

But you can't really power a play on atmosphere alone, and that's all Smith's got; she wrote several other fairly successful scripts, but I can't imagine how, her dramaturgical powers seem so puny.  Indeed, Smith is unable to structure even a single solid scene (nobody at Stoneham gets one); she telegraphs shifts in mood, and notional conflicts, directly (some confrontations are simply narrated by the heroine, who of course wants to be an author, at left), and shuffles her large cast back and forth at will, pushing characters through unlikely emotional hoops with little rhyme or reason.

So it's hard to care in the end who will capture this castle  (the play is about two poor British girls living with their lovably artsy family in a rustic ruin, which two rich, eligible American boys inherit - I think you can do the rest, and probably better than Dodie Smith could).  But everyone at Stoneham works so hard at being lovable - and Smith is, occasionally, quite witty - that the show is sometimes charming (if faintly so).  Local star Marianna Bassham, deploying a smoky alto that would have done Tallulah Bankhead proud, has the most fun with the trenchantly ditzy opinions of Topaz, the artist's model who now plays stepmother to the Disney-esque brood of James Mortmain (an intriguing Allyn Burrows), a once-great author now lost in the doldrums of writer's block.  Yes, "Topaz Mortmain" - this kind of play always features that kind of name, along with tongue-twisters from Greek mythology, so people often stumble over lines like "I never loved Melpomene, Ariadne, but I'm mad for Euterpe!"

Oh, well; I was glad to watch many of the actors Stoneham has assembled for this extravaganza, even if I winced at their lines.  It's been far too long since I saw the lovely Philana Mia, for instance - who really should be playing some Shakespearean heroine somewhere - but she was more than matched by newcomer Melis Aker (a senior at Tufts), who brought a rosy, vulnerable intelligence to Our Narrator, "Cassandra" (but who didn't quite limn the painful arc of her romantic experience, I'm afraid).  Alas, the girls' suitors were less compelling - Dan Whelton and Michael Underhill have given striking performances elsewhere, so I didn't understand quite why they failed to channel the vibrant American glamour Smith clearly intended.  But almost everyone else was in clover with the author's gallery of eccentrics, so I'll just list them all - Bernie Baldassaro, Charlotte Anne Dore, John Geoffrion, Joey Heyworth, Sarah Jones, Gerard Slattery, Meredith Stypinski, Sheriden Thomas, I wish you'd had a better play to be in.  Still, you couldn't wish for a better set to be in: Richard Chambers constructed an actual turret on the stage of Stoneham.  Maybe they can store it somewhere and bring it back if somebody else ever captures this Castle in a more stage-worthy play.

More Monty at Stoneham

The guys try to take it all off at Stoneham.

I've become something of an expert on The Full Monty of late -  I got a chance to catch it again at the Stoneham Theatre, where it's playing through May 6.  Alas, this production isn't in quite the same league as the crackling version at Boston Conservatory a few weeks back - but it's still a big, friendly lug of a show, and if it lacks some of the Conservatory's energy, it compensates with a sense of grittier, lived-in wisdom.  It helps, of course, that everybody in this cast is the age they're supposed to be - which contributes, I think, to the show's deeper exploration of actual male insecurity, and a corresponding rise in audience sympathy for the crew of regular Buffalo guys who, after they're laid off from their jobs at the steel mill, turn to stripping to get by.

Although about that stripping - a note to all you eager voyeurs out there: if you're dreaming of seeing the full monty at Stoneham - well, be warned the light board operator at this nice suburban theatre has an itchy trigger finger, so the flash that's supposed to accompany "the flash," if you will, comes early -  you can't tell if you've gotten the full monty, or no monty at all.  Basically all you see here is some retina burn, which I guess counts as "hot" in its own way.

Margaret Ann Brady in full theft mode.

But this is still a fun show, even if it's kind of a tease.  Director Caitlin Lowans gives everything a loose, friendly vibe, although traffic isn't always managed smoothly on Christopher Ostrom's awkwardly-angled set (which also tends to crimp Ilyse Robbins' choreography).  So no, "flow" isn't what this show is all about, but it's studded with memorable moments from a savvy cast.

Margaret Ann Brady (left) simply walks off with her scenes as Jeanette, the retirement-home/show-biz refugee who becomes the guys' rehearsal pianist, thanks to some of the most skillfully hard-bitten under-playing I've seen in some time; but the boys do manage to wrestle the show back from her now and again.  Newcomer Michael Timothy Howell made a funny, sexy Jerry, the crew's ringleader -- although he never quite made me believe in his connection to his son, the very poised and endearing Colin Breslin. The most emotionally convincing turn in the production actually came from Corey Jackson as Jerry's best bud Dave, a big guy whose sheer size makes him nervous about taking it all off.  The rest of the guys had their moments too - David L. Jiles Jr. made a smart, forceful "Horse," and Steve Gagliastro was his usual winning self as the boss who'd gotten fired, too, while Nick Sulfaro and Andrew Oberstein hit all the right notes in the way-too-brief gay romance that blooms in the second act.

Elsewhere there was a crack turn from Amy Barker as Gagliastro's ballroom-dancing, clueless wife (although this lady usually gets quite a bit more choreography, guys), and the versatile David Costa was able to switch-hit from gay to straight without missing a beat in a few literally cheeky roles.  Of course pondered coldly - in the buff, if you will - The Full Monty still has some issues; it's a little too long, the second act gets repetitive, the score is good but not great - but these talented folks generally manage to cover the show's gaps the same way those fans used to cover Sally Rand - and with the same entertaining results.

Hard nut to crack

Mice rock!!!  And for their next trick - Sandinista!!

No one could claim that the Stoneham Theatre has played it safe this holiday season; their current Christmas show, in fact, is an edgy new take on The Nutcracker devised by the House Theatre of Chicago (which also came up with a Stoneham hit from a few years back, The Sparrow). So you can forget those familiar visions of sugar plums dancing in your head - this Nutcracker instead tries to touch on grim themes of loss and mourning, even as it simultaneously attempts to tap into the dark springs of fantasy that bubble from its source, E.T.A.Hoffman's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King."

But if combining those contrasting modes sounds like a tall order to you - well, your theatrical instincts are quite good: this Nutcracker proves an odd, pointless misfire that thanks to its talented cast is sometimes mildly amusing, but doesn't really deliver on any of its artistic promises.  It's not particularly touching, or particularly scary, or particularly magical; most often it's just goofy, because it never coheres; and alas, it comes with a melody-free "rockin'" musical score that swings between Saved-by-the-Bell banality and flat-out plagiarism (one "dark" number is transparently the chord progression from "London Calling" - yes, by the Clash - only retrofitted with Christmas lyrics).

What's most perplexing about the House Theatre's script, however, is that it abandons its own most daring emotional gambit: in this contemporary version, Clara's brother Fritz is a young Marine struck down on Christmas Eve.  That tragedy dooms one holiday, of course - but must it doom the next?  Clara's bid to bring some sort of joy back to the Yuletide is a poignant one; and when her uncle Drosselmeyer presents her with a toy Nutcracker who looks just like her lost brother, we sense that some sort of unlikely Christmas catharsis may possibly be in the offing.

Only it turns out it's not, largely because the fantasy "Cavalier" that the Nutcracker traditionally turns into is a romantic figure, not a brotherly one; and the script never builds any kind of real relationship between Clara and Fritz, anyhow.  Thus the talented Sirena Abalian and Danny Bryck just don't have anything to play; their scenes together are blanks, still waiting to be filled in.  So you can forget about the "working through mourning" part of the script; even though the local rodents keep hissing all kinds of despairing lines at poor Clara about how Christmas is doooomed, she's simply impervious.  And as for the E.T.A. Hoffmann echoes - well, this version does dwell on the long struggle with the Mouse (here the Rat) King that I remember from the original story.  Only to be honest, this is material which is usually foreshortened because - well, because it's a little convoluted and repetitive.

Sigh.  Somehow I don't think this Nutcracker is going to crack the ranks of the holiday classics (although in a world that thinks Taylor Swift is an "artist," I suppose anything is possible).  I'm duty-bound, however, to report that the solid Stoneham cast gives it their best shot, and there's really not a weak performance in the show.  Director Caitlin Lowans has drawn uniformly strong work not only from the charmingly natural Miss Abalian and the sweetly mechanical Mr. Bryck, but also from the witty Meagan Hawkes, Mark Linehan, William Gardiner, Grant MacDermott, Alycia Sacco, and Nick Sulfaro (all these folks can sing, too).  Indeed, sometimes these troopers at times almost convince you they're working with real emotional material.  Meanwhile Christopher Ostrom contributes some appropriately spooky lighting (although alas, his set looks more appropriate to Alice in Wonderland), and Stoneham's live band sounds capable enough, although the composers of this mediocre score sound anything but.  And I'm afraid there's nothing like a lame Christmas song to make me let rip with the "bah, humbugs."

Perfect harmony at Stoneham

The talented cast of Sisters of Swing.

I had a nice time at Stoneham Theatre's Sisters of Swing: The Story of the Andrews Sisters (which plays through July 24). And I have a hunch that if you're of a certain age (like me - although I'm hardly old enough to remember these hits from the first time around!), then you will, too.  It's a gently, but genuinely, entertaining evening out.

Does that sound like faint praise?  It's not meant to - although I have to also say that if you're looking for genuine drama, you should look elsewhere; writers Beth Gilleland and Bob Beverage pitch their joint effort as more of a revue than an actual play, and don't mine much conflict from their story in any case - even though one simmered pretty openly in the sisters' later years, bubbling largely around Patty, the youngest, prettiest, and blondest of the trio, who tended to style herself the group's star (and eventually tried to go solo).  But Patty, God bless her, is actually still with us (at the age of 93!); and perhaps in deference to her, Gilleland and Beverage draw a discreet veil over the inner dynamics of the Andrews act - indeed, we generally only hear about the various bumps in the sisters' personal and professional lives in disconnected snippets; it's entirely up to us to connect the dots.

Not that we much feel like doing so.  The Andrews Sisters were certainly no more personally flawed than your average singing act - and probably a good deal less flawed; after all, they managed to live and work together in relative harmony for something like two decades.  Still, the playwrights have to write something, so they cover their lack of conflict with vignettes painting the sisters as pioneers against anti-Semitism and racism; but while I imagine the sisters were, indeed, patriotic, open-minded girls who believed in opportunity for everybody, I don't think they were exactly crusaders.  You could write a fascinating play about the unhappy compromises mainstream acts like the Andrews Sisters made with entrenched prejudice in the 40's - but Sisters of Swing ain't it.

No, the core of this show is not the sisters' story but their music, served straight up, with only a shot of nostalgia as chaser, and the Stoneham cast and backup band (led by music director Mario Cruz, who tickles the ivories onstage) deliver a quite convincing simulation of their famous sound.  Singing actresses Laura DeGiacomo (Patty), Kerri Jill Garbis (LaVerne) and Kimberly Robertson (Maxene) share a sweet stage rapport, can handle the syncopated dancing, and pretty much nail the smoothly integrated harmonies the girls were famous for.  (Their sunny confidence may derive from the fact that they've done all this before - Sisters of Swing is essentially a reprise of a Stoneham hit from a few years back.)  Perhaps the versatile Steve Gagliastro - who basically plays every guy the girls ever met - is less successful at conjuring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, but he's a skillfull comic and certainly up for anything (including an appearance as Carmen Miranda).  And Stoneham's six-piece band, thanks in part to some high-quality arrangements, does evoke the big-band sound that backed the sisters up.  Indeed, the show only hits its real stride when it offers a pretty-much sung-through evocation of the tour the Andrews Sisters put together during World War II to entertain the troops.

Those troops got to hear a lot of great material, because the sisters had quite the catalogue of hits, among them "I Can Dream, Can't I?," "Accent-uate the Positive" (which they sang on vinyl, of course, with Bing Crosby), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me," and the perennially kicky "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B."  These all get a full-throated treatment at Stoneham, and leave the audience happy and satisfied.  So what if the show is dramatically under-powered?  Sometimes you have to accent-uate the positive, e-lim-inate the negative, and not mess with Mr. In-Between.

Same old song, but it's sung well

I just wanted to throw a bouquet at the last minute to the cast of Perfect Harmony (at left), which closes at the Stoneham Theatre this weekend before heading off to New York (which means you only have two more chances to catch it).

In a perfect world, of course, this crack comic (and vocal) cast would be matched with a script worthy of their talents.  But they're oh, so not.  Perfect Harmony is cute all right, and of course wicked self-aware - and these singing actors nail just about all of its many laughs (and more than one character apiece).  But this Glee-inspired take on two sparring high school a capella groups (the "Acafellas" and "Lady Treble") is long on observations that are such common knowledge they don't really count as "observations" any more, and short on things like - well, a plot.   And, I wouldn't say Perfect Harmony is any stronger than an average episode of Glee - it's just rated a little more PG-13, that's all (and btw, one creepy PG-13 groping joke could definitely go). Indeed, the script sometimes feels like a short-form television series; writer Andrew Grosso simply strings along scenes like weekly installments leading up to an hour-long finale, tagging this or that stock situation or character (the closeted gay, the wacky exchange student, the Christian babe who visualizes Jesus as a jock in his underwear) without bothering to build any kind of rising action out of his season's-worth of clichés.

Still, if I were feeling generous, I'd say Grosso's gimmicks seem so familiar because these stereotypes are timeless, and anyhow, these actors actually make the Fox fodder taste fresh.  In a season of sterling casts - arguably this fall has offered the best set of performances I've ever seen in Boston - this crowd still manages to nudge its way close to the front.  (True, some of these "kids" looked to be about 30, but I think we can deal with that; haven't you seen Grease?)  Perhaps first among talented equals were the sweet Kelly McCreary and the starchy Dana Acheson, but I was also awed by Kate Morgan Chadwick's bizarre Latvia-by-way-of-the-Balkans accent, and Marie-France Arcilla's Tourette's-like tics. Jarid Faubel was near perfection as that hunky jock, as was Robbie Collier Sublett as the sharp kid who's looking for a "a big fat wad of musical truth." The show's other high school types were sharply etched by Clayton Apgar, David Barlow (although Barlow got a little broad), Kobi Libii, and Faryl Amadeus.

The good news is that these guys can all sing, too - although the women were generally stronger than the men, and the "Acafellas" didn't really have a tenor (both facts seemed strange, given it was the guys who were supposed to be national champs). All this became part of the joke, too, however; the baritones were quite confident that falsetto could carry them the distance. Too bad something of the same attitude extended to the script itself.

Out of gas

Marianna Bassham and Robert Serrell struggle with Gaslight.

Stoneham's revival of Gaslight has gotten nearly-rave reviews - which, I confess, struck me as more mysterious than any of the plot "twists" in this creaky old chestnut. I suppose Patrick Hamilton's 1938 chiller marked a big step up in terms of craft from the melodramas on which it was based (it ran for years on Broadway, for a time with Vincent Price). And of course it provided the source for the famous Ingrid Bergman film, which I suppose counts as a minor classic (although it doesn't hold up all that well today, either - film buffs might be interested to know that a Hamilton play also served as the basis for Hitchcock's far-better Rope).

The trouble with Gaslight is basically that it's just an entertainment vehicle, and over the years its format has been brought to a much higher pitch in various more-entertaining hits (like Wait Until Dark and Deathtrap - even Sleuth is essentially a descendant). Hamilton's premise - a wife being driven mad by her psychopathic husband - is of course a solid one, but the playwright's construction now looks clunky, and his dialogue - well, let's just say the actors have their work cut out for them.

And it's true most of them do their best to put their lines over. I basically went to the show to see what local star Marianna Bassham (at left) could do with it, but I'm afraid the answer is: make it work, but not much more. This is partly because she doesn't have much to work with in the performance of co-star Robert Serrell, who plays hubby in a calm monotone that I guess is designed to drive us crazy as well as Bassham, and almost does just that. But alas, it also deprives the show of the tonal variety it needs to stay afloat. Christopher Webb manages better as the detective ex machina who rescues the heroine - he and Bassham strike a few sparks, even though their scenes seem quite choppy at times. Local stalwarts Angie Jepson and Dee Nelson contribute effective cameos, and Katy Monthei's atmospheric set is spookily lit by Jeff Adelberg (whose work is almost always a little spooky, come to think of it). I have to admit the audience I saw it with seemed to enjoy this script's very mild thrills - perhaps for their very mildness - but it was hard for me to shake the impression that Gaslight may at this point be out of gas.

A very fair Lady

Paul Farwell romps through his role as Alfred P. Doolittle. Photos by Neil Reynolds.

The "sleeper" hit of the spring season is probably Stoneham's My Fair Lady, which you still just have time to catch. The production hasn't benefited from particularly strong press - I don't think it even got a Globe review, and the rest of its notices were somewhat mixed. But positive word of mouth has built around the show, and though I was skeptical, I checked it out last week.

And I have to admit I was largely charmed; although not flawless, this is still a "loverly" version of the timeless classic. Actually, it's more than that - there are the usual compromises that come from squeezing a show this large onto a stage the size of Stoneham's, and there's one weak vocal performance, and one obvious wardrobe malfunction; but for the most part, the show sails smoothly along, and actually grows more absorbing as it unfolds. By the finale, thanks to an unusual chemistry between its two stars, I felt it was the most touching version of the musical I'd ever seen.

Do I have to go into the plot, the original play, etc.? I didn't think so; let's just skip that. The question you probably do have, of course, is how Stoneham deals with the long shadow of the first Broadway production (preserved, pretty much, in the Oscar-winning film). And the answer is: quite gracefully, in general; under the solid, sympathetic direction of Caitlin Lowans, the production both dodges slavish imitation of the original and turns its own more limited resources to best advantage.

Timothy John Smith, for instance, is a tad young to play Henry Higgins, but he carves out an individual niche for himself right next to Rex Harrison's without ever actually imitating that famous performance - and unlike Harrison, he doesn't have to 'speak-sing,' which brings an entire new dimension to such standards as "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face." And luckily, newcomer Robyn Lee (at left) has the pipes for Eliza, too. Alas, she lacks the vulnerability that makes Eliza initially so appealing, but her natural heartiness serves her well at Ascot and elsewhere. And once wounded by Higgins's egotism, Lee seemed to steadily grow in emotional stature - the final, famous tableau had a genuine air of rueful romance to it, as well as the sense that Eliza was not so much capitulating as returning on her own terms.

There were other strong performances scattered through the cast. Paul Farwell all but pranced through the role of Doolittle - a role he may have been born to play; and he was surrounded by affecting turns from Russell Garrett as Pickering, Ann Marie Shea as Higgins's mother, and Shannon Lee Jones as his weary housekeeper. I'd add to that list Michael Buckley as the callow, love-struck Freddy, except that Buckley's singing voice lacked the power to fill out the top notes of the transporting "On the Street Where You Live." Buckley was unusual in this cast, however, which was filled with good singers, even in its choruses and cockney quartets.

There were, to tell true, a few more gaps. The pit band was fine, but simply couldn't supply the sumptuousness of the original orchestrations, of course. Meanwhile Ilyse Robbins's choreography made the most of singers who weren't really dancers, and Kathryn Kawecki's elegant set played the same trick with the adequate, but not spacious, Stoneham stage. The costuming, by the reliable Stacey Stephens, was likewise fine - until it came time for the iconic costumes Eliza wears to Ascot and the ball, when Stephens inexplicably faltered. Oh, well. My advice to future producers of My Fair Lady is to not attempt to better Cecil Beaton - just channel him. As this version does with so many of the original's virtues.

Flight of The Sparrow

The "trailer" for the original production of The Sparrow.

The Sparrow, which closes this weekend at the Stoneham Theatre, posits an interesting problem for a critic. First things first: it's brilliantly staged; scene after scene takes sudden wing, with basketball games and even literal flight beautifully and simply evoked via simple props, clever choreography, and looming projections. And at a deeper level the production seems to provide an answer to the aesthetic question that has stumped many a Boston theatre (as evidenced by the ART's Donnie Darko or the Huntington's 39 Steps): how to actually translate the formal structure of film into the theatre?

For make no mistake, watching The Sparrow is quite literally like watching a movie on stage; pulling off that complicated feat is pretty much its raison d'être. (There's solid acting work in it, from lead Dillian Arrick as well as supporting players Jonathan Popp, Ilyse Robbins and Elizabeth Erwin, but the individual actors are overwhelmed by the staging.) When you add to that the interesting fact that the show began in the world of Chicago community theatre (at director Nathan Allen's House Theatre), an awareness dawns that this is a case in which an audience has set out to build, and succeeded in building, its own new theatrical model - entirely without the professors or the avant garde! So hurray for the good people of Chicago community theatre!

But then you're faced with the fact that what "the people" chose to build was a musical episode of Heroes . . .

. . . and you kind of go, "Hmmmm."

Not that there's anything wrong with Heroes, my young friends! Nor is there anything "wrong" with Carrie or The Fury, or High School Musical, or any of The Sparrow's other obvious sources (among which we must include, bizarrely enough, Russell Banks's The Sweet Hereafter).

But you see the trouble is that even as The Sparrow soars, it's running smack into an interesting aesthetic wall, indeed one that's central to what the theatre is all about.

But let's back up a minute. The Sparrow centers on Emily Book (Dillian Arrick, at left), who surprisingly enough is bookish, and like so many bookish teens, has awesome superpowers. Only not just in her own mind, or in Second Life; noooo - Emily actually sports a mean telekinetic backhand, and can also fly, and, we learn eventually, even raise the dead! So mooove over, Jesus, Emily Book rocks!

Now for most teens, you'd think, rad superpowers would lead to some truly awesome partying. But not with poor Emily! You see, there's this small matter of her sending the entire second grade to their deaths in a schoolbus a few years back, before she had all her telekinetic shit under control. (Don't you hate when that happens?) So now our heroine's literally doubled over with self-consciousness, and self-doubt, and other stuff that starts with self-, which means we should feel totally sorry for her 24/7, even though she's not doing serious time in juvenile detention.

And that's where I felt like picking up the remote and channel-surfing on The Sparrow's brilliantly-staged ass. Only oops - this was live theatre, so there was no remote, and I realized I was stuck inside the weepy narcissism of the average teen (yours truly included) writ large, as social statement, for two hours. Thus, since there was no real emotional or moral development in the script, I wound up pondering the differences between stage and screen at my leisure.

And what occurred to me was this: movies and theatre are different in ways that short-circuit, rather than expand, their respective forms. (And yes, I know, there are exceptions to every rule, but work with me here, okay?) A film like Carrie (or The 39 Steps) succeeds because of the famous powers of subjectivity latent in cinema: a great director (with the help of his cinematographer, designer and composer) can easily draw us into a dream-like identification with the main character's state of mind (indeed, if you ponder your own dreams, you'll soon realize they're hardly rendered POV; you can usually "see" yourself framed in scenic perspective, just like in the movies). In short, when we're in the hands of, say, Hitchcock, it's only a small psychological step to "believing" that we ourselves are actually dangling from a window, or dashing away from a plane, like Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant.

But can the stage simulate "subjectivity" in precisely the same way? I'd argue no. Sure, theatre is capable of ravishing flights of fantasy, and intense outpourings of emotion - but sooner or later, theatre almost inevitably "frames" that content, and complicates, or even undermines, its characters' emotions through the evocation of a larger cultural space. We observe, and of course sympathize, but don't simply identify. Indeed, the Huntington's 39 Steps became a long goof on precisely this aesthetic gap; it conjured just about every chase and narrow escape of Hitchcock's movie, only the whole thing became an ironic lark in the process, because the aesthetic means of the escapades were always visible, and thus risible.

What's different about The Sparrow is that its actors simply refuse to admit any self-awareness into the proceedings (and they're helped in this by the cinematic, gigantically literal projections). And we sense that we'd better not do so, either. The cast utterly commits to the idea, for instance, that their story-theatre solution to the problem of a cliff-hanging rescue is as gripping as the climax of North by Northwest. When of course it's not. We admire the ingenuity of the staging, yes, but we're hardly thrilled when the poor maiden supposedly dangling from the roof of the gym is saved, thank God. Because we were never actually nervous for her at all. It seems odd that in our ironic age this silly derring-do should be treated so reverently, but that seems to be what's going on, and so we play along.

And why? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the answer simply lies in the marketing of the piece, and our sense that this serves some larger social motion. One blogger associated with the Stoneham made this case directly, in fact - to all you kids who aren't interested in theatre, he said, this one's for you. And of course he was right; The Sparrow is for teens of all ages who aren't really interested in context or critique, or the social functions of theatre in general, but who are wondering instead how its conventions might be bent to their will.

Now again, as I said before, to each his (or her) own; but I have to point out as a critic that as a result of this positioning, The Sparrow is really neither fish nor fowl. It's "thrills" don't really thrill, except as a simulation of another art form's specialty; and the kind of truths we might expect from a genuine theatrical structure, such as some dawning sense of responsibility from our superheroine, never seem to be on the table; indeed, they are of really no interest.

Of course there's also no reason why the techniques of The Sparrow couldn't be applied to "genuine" theatre - but would the kids still come? I'm not sure, but it seems that many of these projections and effects could add a marvelous dimension to the "cinematic" aspects of a Shakespeare history, or Peer Gynt. (We've already seen them applied locally to opera.) But then again, in such cases said techniques would extend theatre, rather than subvert it. And I'm not sure that would be a selling point.

A satisfying dramatic spread at Stoneham

Delilah Kistler and Aidan Kane decide to make their own Picnic.

Reputations, Edward Albee once opined, are curious things; and he should know, as his own nose-dived for something like two decades. But at least Albee saw a reversal in his critical fortunes; his great gay compatriot, Tennesse Williams, was not so lucky. Likewise the prestige of the closeted William Inge, a leading playwright when Albee first came to prominence, slipped during his later career and then posthumously slid into a seemingly permanent decline. But a few more productions like the Stoneham Theatre's revival of Picnic, which wraps its run this weekend, could begin to change that. It's true this rendering is far from perfect, but it's done well enough for us to perceive just how thoughtful and well-crafted this Pulitzer prize-winner actually is. And these days this feels like a small miracle - imagine, melodrama done with neither condescension nor camp!

Not that Inge doesn't sometimes invite both. Set in a dusty hamlet in Kansas, this anti-pastorale centers on that staple of the post-war stage: a handsome drifter who wanders into a gaggle of lonely, frustrated women. Paul Newman was its original shirtless hunk, and he faced a bevy of familiar female types: the spinster teacher, the prettiest girl in town, her tomboy kid sister, the tough broad who runs a boarding house, etc., etc. But the playwright has far more up his dramatic sleeve than a catfight between stereotypes. That hunky drifter is only one of a trio of not-so-eligible bachelors around whom Inge's women orbit like lonely moons, and from them he conjures a bittersweet roundelay of dreams, hopes and frustrations (he even closes his first act with a group dance), all grounded in a very grim economic reality.

It's that grimness that the Stoneham doesn't quite capture; the clapboard houses of its set are too Our-Town-wholesome, its costumes a little too clean and well-pressed. The yard should be slightly dustier, the very air a bit grittier; we're slightly shocked to realize that train tracks run right behind these facades, but we should have understood that all along: these women are almost on the wrong side of the tracks, hanging onto the bottom rung of gentility - and the men who drift by them are their only ticket up the socio-economic ladder.

In these days of female empowerment, of course, this all seems a bit dated; that doesn't make it any less real - or any less relevant to the exigencies of today. Women are still at an economic disadvantage, and many still make do with men they'd prefer to do without. Romantic risk and compromise, I'm afraid, are timeless topics. And it's that edge of realism that Inge evokes so subtly, and that in the end makes Picnic so haunting.

And some of this does come over at Stoneham, even if director Caitlin Lowans seems at times undecided whether to honor the play's melancholic edge or simply do it up as a period piece. She's also hamstrung by some of her male casting. For that pivotal Paul Newman role she's found a definite hottie in Aidan Kane, who sports dark good looks and a body to die for. But Kane is too sweet and playful to make much sense of his character's unstable past or rough ways; he's obviously all puppy and no predator, which drains the play of its edge and makes his antagonists look too paranoid. And then there's Ben Sloane as Kane's supposed opposite, the big man on campus who's maybe just a cad; Sloane is simply blank when he should seem calculating (although to be fair, he's convincingly shell-shocked at the finale).

These two therefore leave the lovely Delilah Kistler, in the leading role of Madge (who must decide between them), sometimes acting against thin air. Still, she manages to hit the right notes, if in a slightly subdued way. She gets solid back-up from Emily Graham-Handley as that tomboyish kid sister, although Graham-Handley could layer her coltish body language with a touch more unhappy adolescent pout (and she's not nearly working that dance scene for the first notes of innocent, embarrassed desire that should sound there).

Fortunately, the production finds its feet in the performances of Sarah Newhouse and Craig Mathers in the roles of the spinster schoolteacher and her milquetoast beau. I longed for a slightly stronger twist of bitters from Newhouse in her early scenes, but she and Mathers played their second-act duet of manipulation, uncertainty and longing just beautifully (above left); when they were on stage, Picnic felt like a theatrical feast. There were also tasty supporting performances from Lisa Foley and Dee Nelson as Madge's mom, although Nelson, like the rest of the show, should seem a bit more hardscrabble. (After all, she can see the cold choices facing her daughter far more clearly than the girl can herself.) Even as is, however, the production came together with satisfying emotional power in its climax, and its final surprise registered with just the right sense of rue. Here's hoping Picnic won't be the last we see in these parts of William Inge.

A Rose without thorns

For once, the printed word got it right - local reviewers have been generally correct in their complaint that Stoneham's Gypsy is hobbled by Leigh Barrett's much-anticipated star turn as Mama Rose. Vocally, of course, Boston's top diva turns in another performance to sing about, but dramatically, Ms. Barrett seems to have been tripped up by an innate urge to please, combined with her own expertise at intelligent introspection - which, of course, Mama Rose notoriously had none of; instead, this stage mother/monster should push her way through Gypsy via blind ambition and sheer force of will. Rose may indeed have loved the objects of her ambition, daughters Baby June (who became the actress June Havoc) and Baby Louise (who would metamorphose into the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee), but maternal feeling was not what drove her - and this grim fact is the curdled core of Gypsy, a poisoned valentine to not just vaudeville, burlesque, and perhaps all of show biz, but to the maternal bosom as well.

The show's lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, of course, had a famously horrific mother too ("Foxy" Sondheim), so he clearly understood Mama Rose's subconscious agenda (Sondheim once wrote a thank-you note for a piece of china that ran, "Thanks for the plate, but where was my mother's head?"). The author of the show's book, Arthur Laurents (with whom Sondheim worked closely), whitewashed the real-life Rose Hovick (who shot one person dead, and attempted to kill Baby June's fiancée) to deliver a brassy anti-heroine tailored to the take-no-prisoners persona of Ethel Merman. Sans Merman, of course, the question of how likeable Rose should, or can, be, is always pertinent to any production of Gypsy, but still, she should never be ingratiating, as Barrett too often makes her.

Barrett's sympathy with daughters June and Louise is likewise misplaced; what Sondheim and Laurents understood is that Rose's mania for vicarious stardom came with a catch: once she reached her goal, and her girls did become stars, they were of no use to her - instead, they became reminders of her own personal failure. Indeed, as adults, June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee would only communicate with their mother through lawyers; her last words to Gypsy were ""Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'll be right there. When you get your own private kick in the ass, just remember: it's a present from me!"

Ah, yes - wherever you go, whatever you do - with his usual perversity, Sondheim pulled those lines right into the upbeat anthem "Together, Wherever We Go" which graces the second act of Gypsy. This was, however, only one of a dozen inspired choices; not for nothing is Gypsy generally considered the last of the great book musicals: along with a tight book and an indelibly rendered star role, it's studded with memorable Jule Styne melodies (and Sondheim lyrics), including "Let Me Entertain You," "You'll Never Get Away from Me," and of course "Everything's Coming Up Roses."


A burlesque "tribute to Christmas" in Gypsy. For a taste of Gypsy Rose Lee's actual act, see the post below of her routine from Stage Door Canteen. (Photo by Stephanie Moskal.)

And the Stoneham cast generally does well by the show's numbers. Barrett's belting on "Roses" is sublime, and as Louise, up-and-comer Eve Kagan is quite affecting in "Little Lamb" and "If Mama was Married" (alas, we never sense her own dawning pleasure, though, in becoming a star - even a burlesque star - and how that translates into a triumph over Mama). The famous "You Gotta Get a Gimmick," always a highlight, is particularly hilarious here, as delivered by Vanessa Schukis, Shannon Lee Jones and Rebecca Zaretsky, and the show is likewise stopped by William Nash Broyles with "All I Need is the Girl." There are other good performances (including a subtle turn by Scott H. Severance as Mama Rose's perennial consort, Herbie, and vibrant dancing from Andrew Barbato, Tristan Viner-Brown, and Phil Crumrine), but director Caitlin Lowans never keeps the show on a tight rein - particularly the children's numbers - and so it sometimes feels unfocused, even community-theatre-esque (particularly on its bare-bones set). Still, its high points offer a sense of what Gypsy is all about - and given the disappointing general opening of the season, for some theatre fans that may be enough.