Volume 2, Issue 16 July 20 - August 2, 2000

Theater Listings

The Arvada Center brings the rhythm and bounce of New York City circa 1944 tap-dancing through Denver in its Y2K production of On The Town. The musical, written 66 years ago by Betty Comden and Adolph Green with music by Leonard Bernstein, still has plenty of spunk to carry it into the next century.

The plot is the standard boy meets girl affair that got dressed up in different guises throughout the ‘40's and turned into movie after toe-tapping movie. In fact, this play was made into a movie starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. So those of you who want to stay stuck in the fantasy of an America that sings, an America where love dawns easy as sunrise and never goes wrong, can rent the video and go to sleep with smiles every night at least until the late charges kick in.

Director Bev Newcomb-Madden has custom-fit a full scale Broadway musical production into the intimate ambiance of The Arvada Center's outdoor amphitheater. Tickets, priced from $14 are more than reasonable for a major musical production complete with a 28 member cast, a staff and crew which outnumbers the cast, an orchestra and well, I think you can see where I'm going with this. Given the professional production level, sets, costumes and venue, the tickets are priced as one might have expected in ...1944.

Set design and stage management glowed under the spotlights like a shiny Big Apple. Stage and set were used to transition the audience from the shipyard to the subway to Times Square and beyond. Of particular note was the museum scene with a T-Rex skeleton and two cavemen who spent nearly ten minutes in a perfect diorama freeze only to emerge near the end of the scene for a tap dancing duel with one of the lead characters. Now, to see cavemen with oversized plastic caveman feet not only tap dancing but tap dancing well just 25 feet in front of you ... it's enough to make you lighten up and buy into the whole happy ending thing at least for a little while.

Choreography along with musical direction were letter perfect and moving. Vocals were outstanding, particularly those of Chris Starkey (Ozzie) and Joan Staples (Claire De Loone) who delivered a stunning duet in Carried Away. Set Designers Nick and Joan Cimyotte brilliantly transformed the stage for each of the 16 scenes of the play without ever dropping the curtain or distracting the audience from the central action. The effortless flow of set changes complimented the action and heightened the impact of the hustling, breathless pace of the play, the city and the 24 hours of shore leave enacted by the cast.

Authentic costuming sealed the effect. I know the costumes were authentic because my mother actually has closets full of c.1945 dresses stored in the basement. I grew up playing dress-up in chiffons and bolero shirts and the aesthetic high of silks and sweaters, pleats and pastel plaids flowing in all their deliriously feminine glory.

As a rule, I'm not fond of musicals, but this is a first-rate production of a first-rate musical, which was written during a time when singing and dancing came from the heart. The cast and crew revere the play and it shows. This is one you shouldn't miss. You'll leave smiling. Then you can go rent the movie.

The world premiere of O.T. was staged at the Denver Civic Theater on July 8. The play, a drama spot-lighting the relationships between men, was written by Austin playwright Brett Aune. He does a good job exposing the myth that racism is dead without much overkill by using lingering racial undercurrents and the interior struggles they cause to create the central conflict.

The most interesting angle of this play is that it is a man's story, and even though the racism thing comes into play as a driving force of the plot, it is the strong development of male characters and their markedly male communication style that captures and holds the audience. I find this a good thing at a time when just being a guy equates to choosing the most comfortable pigeon hole from which to be scrutinized. The main character isn't stereotypical. He's not a hero or a villain, a lover or a flaming freak-show. He's just a guy trying to figure things out the right way from the inside.

Acting is solid throughout the play. Set and direction flow well also. Chris Reid, as Tres, gives a convincing performance that, like his character, is more notable for subtlety than for glitz. In fact all the male performances are strong and realistic. The character of Elizabeth (Kimberly Payetta) was a little too transparent for me. She (being the woman) acts as the voice of social conscience, but I suppose a transparent female in a play about guys is okay.

That aside, I will say that the writing was artful and innovative, making full use of some rather complicated techniques like parallel dialogues, tandem scenes and omniscient narration from characters. The pacing is clicks along audibly like a basketball being dribbled and the plot holds up rather well. The play even asks a question we all struggle with often: can we change who we are?

Writing this play required a lot of risk from the playwright and it certainly paid off. O.T. is a moving and enlightening play which leaves the audience a little changed. To me, this is the quintessential mark of good play writing. I recommend it; even if you don't like basketball, you can marvel at the fine technique and craftsmanship of a well-written play.

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