THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 16, 1996 TAG: 9605140115
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: Montague Gammon III
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
The Wells Theatre stage was awash with color and filled with energy when the able young performers from the Governor's School for the Arts played out the show biz fable ``42nd Street'' last weekend.
Adapted from the 1933 film of the same name, the musical followed the fortunes of a starry-eyed girl from Allentown, Pa., whose talent and improbable luck pitch her into a leading role on Broadway in her first professional show.
Mary Faber had the role of the chorus girl who finds stardom. Steve Kilcullen played the hard-bitten, cliche-spouting director of ``Pretty Lady,'' the fictional show in which fresh Peggy Sawyer makes her Broadway debut, and Tina Ryals and Matt Kaplan portrayed the show's authors.
For subplots, there is a budding romance between Sawyer and leading man Billy Lawlor (John Sechrist), and an ongoing story about veteran actress Dorothy Brock (Andrea Dawn Brewer), her sugar daddy, and her old lover from vaudeville days.
Of course, there is lots of dancing and plenty of singing, though this script, rather curiously, does not provide many solos that really show off the vocalists' abilities. The sheer energy of the group numbers, the way that choreographer Jeff Warner harnessed it, and the sharp execution of the choral pieces, dominate first impressions of this show and were by themselves enough to enthrall a viewer.
The script was full of deliberate and unapologetic cliches, many of them voiced by Marsh and Brock. There was a lot of ``broken hearts for every light on Broadway'' type of talk, and plenty of stuff about how Sawyer stands for every young girl who ever had a dream.
The deft way director Lisa Annica Baldwin handled these, and a myriad of other quaint attitudes that the original script may have taken seriously, served as the keystone to this production's strength and depth.
Baldwin introduced a slightly artificial style in all the dialogue of the veteran performers - Marsh and his flunkies, Brock, the authors - that set their interactions discretely apart from the more natural speech of the ordinary folk who make up the choruses.
Rather than exaggerating the cliches into simple-minded mockery, Baldwin turned their deliberate triteness into a gentle satire. This approach let the actors stretch their talents and turn in some notably well-crafted performances.
For much of her time on stage, Faber's role is dominated by Sawyer's nervousness and hapless innocence. When she does get to put her talents to full use, it's clear that Faber can sing and dance quite well, but one moment as the play nears its end reveals her to be an actress of exceptional concentration as well.
It's a schmaltzy bit at the climax of ``Pretty Lady.'' As the character who Sawyer plays is reunited with her lover, a bullet intended for a fleeing pickpocket strikes the young man dead. There follows the predictable passage of grieving, and then of her return to the world as she joins the chorus in the dancing finale.
Faber's wordless transition, a visible gathering of strength and reharnessing of the unnamed character's energies that paralleled what the character of Peggy Sawyer had to do as she stepped into the leading role, was a moment of rare worth in which any actress of any age could take pride.
All the leading players turned in performances of a quality that one would expect only from mature actors. Kaplan was especially funny in a sharply understated way. Kilcullen revealed that his acting range is remarkably broad, and Ryals cut loose with some funny and well-sung bits.
In the role of Andy, who is apparently the dance captain or choreographer of ``Pretty Lady,'' Montre DeShaun Burton got to display some eye-poppingly fluid and forceful dancing.
One hopes that the school audiences who trouped into the Wells Theatre for a preliminary performance went back to their classes with more than just the thrill of seeing a show this well done.
For all its worth as theater, and ``42nd Street'' was as worthwhile as just about anything found on local stages, the greater value of the production and of all the Governor's School work lies in their lasting educational importance. Adult performers in the opening night audience kept returning to one theme in conversations at intermission and after the curtain. ``If only there had been something like this when we were in school!'' ILLUSTRATION: AT A GLANCE
What: ``42nd Street,'' by Harry Warran, Al Dubin, Michael Stewart
and Mark Bramble.
Who: The Theater Department of the Governor's School for the
Arts, in association with the Performing Arts Department.
When: The production ran May 11-13.
Where: Wells Theatre, 254 Granby St.
Information: 441-2905.
by CNB