Off-Broadstreet crafts an endearing revival of this 1993 Broadway miss.
By: Stuart Duncan
If you want to study how not to produce a Broadway show, you could use Mixed Emotions as a textbook case. The show opened out-of-town, first in Los Angeles, then in Kansas City, Mo. It was titled Embraceable You and, naturally enough, many theater-goers expected it to be a musical. Next it went to Chicago with a different cast.
Finally, with a name change plus another cast change, it arrived in New York in mid-October 1993. It was the first play to be offered under a cost-cutting movement, called Broadway Alliance. The idea was to provide cheaper tickets. Various unions were being asked to make certain concessions.
But if anything is calculated to kill a Broadway show, it is cheaper prices. Everyone, it seems, wants to attend a hit, ticket price be damned. Cut-rate implies a bad show. Mixed Emotions staggered for a bit more than two months and closed with a complete loss of funds.
There were other problems, of course. The script, by Richard Baer, is a gentle romantic comedy, with a pair of senior citizens desperately attempting to seek new lives after each has lost an original mate. Moreover, the two have been longtime friends, thereby making the situation trickier.
As each fights to overcome the somewhat rose-colored memories of past loves, the show gets funnier. There is much bedroom humor, but it is based on tenderness, rather than raunch.
The problem with the 1993 production was the producers cast a pair of veteran comedians in the roles, and each had the tendency to overplay the one-liners at the expense of the characters.
The show is being revived at Hopewell’s Off-Broadstreet Theatre, and it makes no such mistakes. Director Bob Thick has captured the humanity, both in the situation and in the characters of Christine and Herman. He has brought back two veterans of past productions, and they pair magnificently. Cynthia Lake finds delicious shadings that you will find endearing; Ed Mahler brings such joy to the role that what might be smutty is belly-achingly funny. The two are simply superb warm and elegant.
As a pair of ill-matched moving men, Curtis Kaine and Geoffrey Barber, get huge laughs mainly by innocently walking in at inappropriate times, thereby underscoring the evening.
Somewhere in the middle of the second act, you may realize that you have been brilliantly manipulated. You probably won’t care. Playwright Baer slowly runs out of steam, but a grin will be on your face long after the applause has died down. Mixed Emotions is so craftily done in this production, so nicely acted, so carefully directed, that you may well wonder why no one seems to have heard of the playwright again.
Mixed Emotions continues at Off-Broadstreet Theatre, 5 S. Greenwood Ave., Hopewell, through Oct. 13. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2:30 p.m. The theater opens one hour before shows for desserts and beverages. Tickets cost $20.50-$22. For information, call (609) 466-2766.