Williamsburg Players: Oliver!

Go... and see a talented group of kids!

Like Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice before it, Charles Dickens' 1830's novel, Oliver Twist, is a bit of a literary double-edged sword. It has been the subject of innumerable film and stage adaptations - including the 1968 Best Picture-winning Oliver!, adapted from a Best Original Score-winning musical of the same name. It has also long been the subject of racial controversy surrounding the portrayal of one of the main antagonists - Fagin. In the original novel, Fagin, like Shakespeare's Shylock, is an offensively rendered Jewish caricature described by Dickens as "a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair." Dickens' initial publications contained illustrations, provided by George Cruikshank, that epitomized Jewish stereotypes. Dickens even refers to Fagin as "The Jew" more often than by his name, often in a pejorative manner. The anti-Semitic nature of the character has been intentionally toned down over the years, and Lionel Bart redefined him as a charismatic antagonist worthy of our sympathy in his musical adaptation, Oliver!

The Williamsburg Players' production of Bart's Oliver! has some strong performances, but is marred by technical issues and an unfortunate depiction of Fagin. While the character's makeup and prosthetics are successful from a technical standpoint, the design appears to be based on the  caricature illustration in Dickens' original novel. Patrick Soderholm is talented, but his cartoonish, Muppet-like vocal choices only exacerbate the lampooning roots of the character. The Theater Stud wishes The Players had made Fagin a much more realistic character, as Bart intended, to avoid any unintentional connection to Dickens' problematic, racially insensitive character description.

The set, designed by Steve Olson, is aesthetically pleasing but not always practical or realistic. The set is large and sprawling and allows the actors generous opportunity to interact. Scene changes, however, often involve lengthy blackouts and musical vamps as sections of the wall are laboriously unfolded to reveal different parts of the city. Fagin hides his valuables in a secret compartment with a hinged door in a brick wall. Oliver runs across the bridge to escape a police officer, who catches him by simply walking across the lower level of the stage indicating that the bridge has no actual reason to be there. More focus on the practicality of the set would be welcomed.

The live orchestra sounds great and is blended well with the ensemble, which is a testament to musical director Mike McCoy. The orchestra's room-filling sound is welcome, but results in a need for working microphones on solo numbers, which isn't always the case. Kimberlyn Williams-Middleton (Nancy) suffered the most at my performance, as her microphone didn't seem to work for the entirety of Act One.

When Williams-Middleton's microphone worked in the second act, she was very well-received. "As Long As He Needs Me" is one of the better performed songs in the show, despite her tendency to slide between notes. Her stage presence is strong enough to carry her scenes, even when her microphone was not functioning.

Ronnie Littman makes an endearing Oliver with a sweet, straight-toned singing voice. Ryan Schoenberg - who plays The Artful Dodger - looks far older than Littman, which takes a little away from the intended relationship between the characters. He sings his songs an octave lower than written, but performs them well and with an energy that makes the age disparity excusable. All of the young actors are quite good. The opening number, "Food, Glorious Food" showcases the plethora of young talent as the children energetically sing, dance, and perform flips while enthusiastically interacting with each other.

Adam Stillwell's Mr. Bumble is appropriately intimidating and commanding of the stage, most notably when Oliver asks for more food. His pairing with Starla Kramer (Widow Corney) is not always successful. Both actors have proper energy and vocal ability, but Kramer defaults to over-acting and delivers her lines with an unplaceable hodgepodge accent. Alex Bedont has a nice baritone voice and is fittingly brooding and formidable as the violent Bill Sykes.

Alex Stachowiak's choreography is energetic and fun, and makes good use of the athletic and acrobatic dancers in the cast; however, some of the songs suffer from repetitive dance moves that are tedious by song's end. "Consider Yourself" is presented with high-energy dance by the entire company across the large stage, but keeps returning to the same set of motions: slap your knees, move to the side, jump in the air and clap under your leg. By the time the encore came, we didn't care to see it again.

Final Thoughts: The kids in this cast are high energy and more than worthy of our community support. Otherwise, there is a lot of "good, but not great" happening here. Strong performers tend to be undermined by technical issues or staging flaws and the show has an overall unpolished feel. Often a throwaway song, "Who Will Buy" is one of the most polished, well-balanced scenes in the entire show. In his director's notes, Peter Natale mentions that this production had several weeks less rehearsal time than is customary. The Theater Stud wishes they had those extra weeks to polish up the show and do a little more research into Fagin's history. This show could have been much better.

 Jonathan McCormick

Limited Run

Performances run thru August 2nd, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

at the James-York Playhouse, 200 Hubbard Lane, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185.

Tickets are $20 for adults, $12 for children and students with ID and can be obtained by

calling the box office at (757) 229-0431 or online at williamsburgplayers.org.

Little Theatre of Virginia Beach: Young Frankenstein

Go... and see a live black-and-white film!

Mel Brooks' hit 1974 film Young Frankenstein is a satirical homage to the 1931 James Whale monster movie, Frankenstein. Like most of Brooks' works, the film employs generous use of broad comedy, but it is one of his funniest and is more grounded than many of his others. This is partly due to Mel Brooks' decision to film the movie in black-and-white. He was so firm in this decision that his original deal to make the film fell through when the studio didn't agree. Brooks is quoted as having said "We said, 'if we make the monster green, it'll be [like] a Halloween mask. It will not have the gravity. It won't have the depth. It won't have the power of the James Whale movie."

The 2007 full-color stage musical version is a faithful adaptation of the movie with a nearly identical script. In a bold move, to pay homage in turn, director James Bryan decided to recreate the black-and-white portrayal for LTVB's production. Making black-and-white work in a live stage production requires every aspect of the show to comply to grayscale and work in perfect continuity. The costumes - designed by Kay Burcher and Karen Buchheim - are astounding. The Theater Stud can't imagine the amount of work that had to go into keeping the costumes consistent in period, color scheme, and scene-appropriateness. The costumes run the gamut from a simple cloak to a glittery formal dress to a horse head, and all but one - a green-tinted dress towards the end of the show - fall perfectly into the black-and-white aesthetic. Ellen Moore's lighting design is similarly confined to shades of white. Any colorful spot lens would ruin the scene. And yet, the lighting is active and constantly changes throughout the show, brightening and opening the stage with appropriate opportunity. Then there is the set.

The path of least resistance would be to minimize the set and allow the costumes, lighting, and actors to do the heavy lifting to maintain the integrity of the black-and-white. Instead, we are treated to a set - designed by Donna Lawheed with scenic design by Tom Coffey and Jessy Davis - that demands its own accolades. The Theater Stud cannot say enough about this set. The opening scenes are played far downstage making use of the black curtain behind the actors. As the cast approaches the castle, the curtains open up to a gate with large doors. After they gain entry to the castle, the set piece rotates to display a study with bookcases and turning walls. They are expertly painted. The fully-stocked book shelves appeared to be a painted wall until Dr. Frankenstein (Joe Siejak) reached in and pulled on one of the many black-and-white books to find the secret passage. The set further opens up once the secret passage is discovered, and it is beautiful. There is a plethora of detail in every turn of the set, all painted within the grayscale, but looking as three dimensional and interesting as the most colorful of sets. There is gray smoke that pours out of the chambers as Igor (Matt Downey) pulls the levers on top of the two level set. There is a gray curtain stage-right that conceals yet another black-and-white painted room. The fine detail, special effects, multiple sprawling and expanding layers all stay within the black-and-white scheme to create possibly the best set The Theater Stud has ever seen.

The final piece of the black-and-white puzzle is the makeup, designed by Wendy Roache. The majority of the cast has grayscale wigs and well-blended makeup. Most of the actors look like they came directly out of a black-and-white film onto the stage. Most is not all, however, and curiously the makeup is very poorly done on the two main characters - Dr. Frankenstein (Joe Siejak) and The Monster (Robert Shirley). Neither Siejak nor Shirley is wigged and both have obviously brown hair, which is distracting and odd as the ensemble has wigs. Siejak's face makeup looks caked on haphazardly and is absent from his neck, hair line, hands, and arms. Shirley was inexplicably green, which is a glaring contradiction to everything else on stage and is directly at odds with Brooks' rationale.

Siejak is in his element as Dr. Frankenstein. He comfortably commands the stage with charisma and humor. His dancing is smooth while maintaining his character and humor, and he frequently uses his tall, lanky physique to bring an element of physical comedy to the role that notably separates his performance from Gene Wilder's in the film. His singing isn't nearly as strong as his other tools, but is adequate for the role. Matt Downey is a hilarious and energetic Igor with golden comedic timing. It is truly hard to keep your eyes off of him while he's on stage. Molly Morneault is a lovely Inga with a strong voice and good chemistry with Siejak. Her yodeling hayride deserves special kudos. Kathy Hinson's impressive voice is on full display as Elizabeth, particularly during "Deep Love." She also has an outstanding ability to ground the over-the-top comedy to a more nuanced, still-hilarious character, as evidenced by her rare capacity for taking one-joke songs (three of them, to be exact) and making them consistently funny. Kay Burcher delivers some of the funniest moments of the night as Frau Blücher (neigh). Her rendition of "He Vas My Boyfriend" is show-stopping. Vincent DeSanto (Victor von Frankenstein) and Cliff Hoffman (The Hermit) are both capable character actors with lots of energy in their scenes. Robert Shirley is hilarious, but an atypical choice for The Monster, given the fact that he isn't as tall as Siejak - even in 6 inch platform shoes - and the fact that when he sings "Deep Love (Reprise)" in the final moments of the show it is evident that he has the best male voice in the cast. He successfully avoids copying Peter Boyle's iconic film performance of "Puttin' on the Ritz" - but manages to be just as funny - and makes the character's stark transition at the end of the show seamless.

Choreography (Karen Buchheim) was energetic and tight. There are many ensemble dance scenes in the show and the choreography is enthusiastic and generally well-executed, although out of rhythm in the tap scene. It doesn't help that the music is pre-recorded tracks at a set tempo, seemingly only coming from the house-left speakers. The tracks are often muddled and are played at inconsistent volume which hurts ensemble vocal energy. Music direction, provided by Laura Oliver, is made more difficult by a weak sound system. Solo and duet songs are usually performed well, while the group numbers are less consistent, but still enjoyable.

Final Thoughts: Young Frankenstein is a great time with a funny, enjoyable cast with several standouts. James Bryan's direction is solid, and his research into making the black-and-white theme come to life pays dividends. If the lead actors' makeup had been smoother, The Theater Stud would have gotten lost in the show forgetting that it was being portrayed in grayscale. Expect the sound system to be a little weak, but also expect a night full of belly-laughs. The show is well worth it.

-Jonathan McCormick

 

Performances run thru August 9th, Friday - Saturday at 8 p.m. and

Sundays at 2:30 p.m. at the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach

550 Barberton Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23451.

Tickets are $20 ($17 for matinees, $8 for children) with discounts for seniors, students and active military.

Reservations can be obtained by calling the box office at (757) 428-9233 
or online at ltvb.com