Changing Seasons

TimeOFF’s theater critic looks back at Summer 2001.

By: Stuart Duncan
   There are many who believe that because a few of the major theaters in the area pause for the summer, activity relaxes in all areas. They overlook the fact that other groups rush to fill the perceived vacuum.
   The Langhorne Players, Princeton Summer Theater and two open-air sites — in Edison and Washington Crossing Park in Titusville — are summer venues only. So, too, are a pair of major festivals — the Opera Festival of New Jersey in Princeton and The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in Madison. Now add a 39-week schedule for Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pa., and you can see that indeed the summer is busier than the cold months.
   The notion persists that it’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy. But it’s never easy to mount a full-fledged production, not with all the nice outdoor weather, vacations and other distractions. The summer of ’01 was a real dandy, with remarkable performances, fine staging and solid direction. Here, in case you missed them, are some of the highlights.
   We will stick to the age-old dates: Summer begins on Memorial Day and closes Labor Day. Time enough to cover and review 44 shows.
   Actors’ NET in Morrisville, Pa., had a pair of big winners: Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? early in the summer and My Fair Lady to close it. In truth, the group almost stole all the honors by placing a third show on the list, but a terrific production of Show Boat opened a week too early to qualify under our definition of summer.
   My Fair Lady brought back some of the talent that had made for such a rousing Hamlet last season: George Hartpence, Carol Thompson and Hugh Barton. Then, an elegant little orchestra, some creative staging to fit all the activity onto the small spaces (Cheryl Doyle is a magician) and seamless casting far down the long cast list made for a memorable evening.
   Patent Leather Shoes was a different sort of beast: a musical spoof (with plenty of weighty moments nevertheless) of growing up in Catholic schools. Director Joe Doyle handled young talent with great ingenuity and tenderness. Musical direction by Jim and Susan Barto did the rest. The result had to be seen (and heard) to be fully appreciated.
   The show also contains one of my favorite one-liners in all musicals: "Catholic girls are like whiffle balls — they just don’t go very far."
   Langhorne Players had a summer of complete sellouts at the Spring Garden Mill near Newtown, Pa., starting with A Fair Country, continuing with As Bees In Honey Drown and the best of the trio, Painting Churches. The last mentioned, a 1983 play by Tina Howe, examines a family, the Churches of Boston, as mother and father prepare to leave their beloved old Beacon Hill home and move to a smaller, less challenging apartment on Cape Cod. Papa has Alzheimer’s; Mama has the blahs; and daughter, a noted portrait painter, is determined to capture the moment on canvas. Exquisitely directed by Barbara Katz, superbly acted and deliciously mounted, this production showed why the Langhorne Players are quite simply the best community theater group in the area.
   By contrast, the Villagers in Somerset are fighting to find and hold an audience. Most of the excitement is taking place on the second stage, the "Black Box." Here, the usually bland community comedies or musicals are replaced by cutting-edge modern theater. It seems to be working on the ever larger, enthusiastic audiences. The best of the summer was a double-bill, The Root of Chaos and The Bald Soprano, both foul-mouthed, esoteric and screwball enough to earn the epithet "absurd." A very fine revival of Master Class, superbly acted by Catherine Rowe, drew exceptionally disappointing houses.
   Bucks County Playhouse gets better each summer, its ranks filled with fine young talent, honing skills, preparing themselves for national tours throughout the country that now come with increasing frequency. A recent revival of a little-known show, Kismet, showed just how exciting this theater has become. One of the standbys from past seasons, Phantom, is currently on stage.
   Headley Manor Dinner Theatre in Edgely, Pa., is due to close around Christmas, the result of some chicanery by local politicians. The recent staging of On Golden Pond shows just how sorely this outfit will be missed. Joe Mattern and Peg Lawlor, two of the area’s favorite veteran actors, teamed under Joe Martin’s direction to re-create that beautiful, serene pond in Maine with its ever-present loons. Hopefully, the Martins, Joe and Penny, will soon be able to find a more sympathetic locale.
   The big theaters also had some fine productions. Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn staged Carousel with charm. Not perfect, mind you, but darn good. The Shakespeare Festival in nearby Madison had a sensational The Three Sisters, then turned sour with a boring Hamlet. The Opera Festival of New Jersey, operating at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, had its best-ever season, highlighted by a Turandot that was completely big-league from start to finish.
   Hopewell’s perennial sellout site, Off-Broadstreet, chimed in with Something’s Afoot, brought back after more than a decade. An excitingly young and super-talented company handled the wonderful spoof, Agatha Christie mysteries put to music, with panache. All that and scrumptious desserts, too.