THEATER: Wonderful Town

Photo/Bella Muccari

As it turns out, Wonderful Town isn't all that wonderful: sixty years can be rough on any musical, especially one with a book as chasm-like as the one that's been adapted here by Joseph Field and Jerome Chodorov (from their play, My Sister Eileen, itself adapted from Ruth McKenney's autobiographical New Yorker stories). And while the broad stereotypes that describe the artistic communities in New York City, circa 1935, are a good fit for the equally obvious sets and costumes from William Davis and Jevyn Nelms (crooked lettering, aftermarket Halloween capes--not that there's anything inherently wrong with theater-on-a-budget!), this Gallery Players revival of Wonderful Town ain't all that wonderful neither. Leonard Bernstein's difficult orchestrations are occasionally mangled, more than a few numbers are undersung ("Ohio," for one), and Scott Cally's persistent use of the spotlight in his lighting design only makes some of the blinding issues more . . . well, blinding.

And yet, if I'd seen Wonderful Town before it closed, I'd have recommended it to you all the same, because Gallery Players, hit-or-miss, has always done a phenomenal job of building a little-show-that-could around one or two ready-for-primetime-players. (Last year's The Drowsy Chaperone is the benchmark I'm holding them to; their 2008 Man of La Mancha still makes me smile.) In this case, their star is Molly Pope (who I'll have to catch the next time she's at Joe's Pub), who plays a plucky, brash Ohioan girl determined to make it as a writer in New York City -- and to perhaps find a man who can look past her beautiful sister, Eileen (Laurie Sutton, a bright girl who doesn't quite manage to live up to her character's reputation), and not be intimidated by her direct ways. (If you could save only one thing from this show, it would have to be Ruth's wonderfully self-deprecating "One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man.")

Fittingly enough, Wonderful Town also finds its footing in the jazzy choreography from Elyse Daye Hart and Trey Mitchell, particularly with numbers like "Swing" and "Wrong Note Rag"; it's director Mark Harborth who sometimes stumbles during the silent vignettes or montages that make up songs like "Christopher Street" or in finding an energetic transition into some of the sillier bits like "Pass the Football" and "Conga." But even these moments are brighter when Pope's involved; with her powerful and resonant voice and swift yet solid footwork, she seems a hundred times more present than her castmates, with the exception of her love interest, Robert Baker: actor Adam Kemmerer doesn't quite lose himself in the melodies, but he comes close during "It's Love." That's not to lay this on the feet of the ensemble -- they blend well and dance well, and as the nebbish pharmacist Frank Lippencott, Will Roland pulls out some genuine laughs -- but more on the dated conventions of the musical itself and the enough-is-enough attitude of Harborth's direction, neither of which asks much more of nightclub owner Speedy Valenti (Brad Giovanine) than swagger, nor anything other than sleaze from Chick Clark (Alex Pagels). (Angela Dirksen and Mark Cajigao are particularly blighted by this; they're surely better than they appear to be here.)

So yes, while this production of Wonderful Town is far too sluggish and general to really hit the mark -- if it even still can -- it's worth taking a lesson from any aging town: those bright spots only get brighter.

PLAY: "The Santaland Diaries"

Photo/Jennifer Maufrais Kelly

David Sedaris, if you've ever read him in The New Yorker or heard him on NPR, is an icy humorist. He comes across as droll, listless, and bitter, which makes him perfect for the cold commercial holidays. But his slow, nuanced book, The Santaland Diaries isn't done much justice by Joe Mantello's adaptation, which, in forcing big-bellied Santa laughs with a series of jolly cuts that jump from joke to joke, loses the sardonic rhythm that sustains all of Sedaris's work.

B. Brian Argotsinger is missing something, too: he seems uncomfortable emulating Sedaris's sedate nerviness, but quite at home in Michael Wilson Morgan's candy-cane stockings, which constantly belies his own derision. Instead, he resembles the "artistic" elf he talks about, codenamed Flaky: he comes across more as an actor who hates his job so much that he'll turn it into something more agreeable, in this case, a chance to mimic his targets. Whereas Sedaris just calmly rolls everything into one casually caustic joke, Argotsinger leaps into the voices of those bad elves, Santas, and parents, which is pandering more to the audience than to the tenor of the text. (In fact, he commands the stage like a stand-up comedian, waiting for laughs and -- at one point -- talking directly to one person as he cracks a smile and says, "Oh, now you get it!")

That much isn't really Argotsinger's fault: he's not reciting the book, he's doing Mantello's overbearing play, and as such, his twinkling eyes are a good match for his perpetual sneer and slump. He's also not being helped by Jason Podplesky's perplexing direction, which often strands Argotsinger between lighting cues, forcing him to scramble across a set of hastily gift-wrapped boxes in order to hit his next mark. Sedaris is about as far from farce as you can get, and forcing his words into that sort of festive atmosphere corrodes the underlying ideas.

Thankfully, when the text is left alone, it continues to stand the test, and Argotsinger has a nice deadpan (when he actually uses it). Hearing a "serious" account of working as a Macy's holiday elf can't not be funny, especially when it's punctuated with pleasant anecdotes about the child who wishes for his dead father to come back . . . and for a set of the Ninja Turtles, or the trainee who wants to know if she can work as a full-time elf, year round. These accounts are funny on their own merit, but when they're accented, emphasized, or shouted, they lose their composure.

The Gallery Players has lately shown a commitment to showcasing works that haven't been around for a while (Six Degrees of Separation), or most recently, with brand-new musical productions (Yank!), but this staging of The Santaland Diaries seems as cool and commercial as Santaland's own mechanical efficiency. This production solemnly shuffles from (admittedly) good joke to good joke, but it's no surprise that it took a full thirty seconds for the audience to clap at the end -- we were all left waiting for so much more.

PLAY: "Yank!"

Photo/Jennifer Maufrais Kelly

Before the first chords of Yank!, The Gallery Players management spoke to the audience about ways in which it could help convince them to add more original musicals to their seasons. They mentioned voting for them over at the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. (Check!) They suggested telling their friends about it. (Check!) Then, having focused their creative minds into this wonderful production, they seemed to run out of other ways we could help convince them. Here are a few of mine:

(1) David Zellnik is a wonderful playwright. His last show, Serendib, balanced science and nature, playing the two off each other in a paralleled story between monkey and man. His new musical, Yank! (music by his brother Joe), is a warm-hearted and honest tribute to the WWII era, both in musical styling and gay prejudice. Country boy Stu (Bobby Steggert, well-qualified for the role after being a delightful rube in Roundabout's 110 in the Shade), out of place in the military, finds solace in the strength of Mitch (Maxime de Toledo), whose cool demeanor and charismatic looks (think Ben Affleck) give him the sobriquet "Hollywood." However, their romance is far from dreamlike (though there is a "jump the shark" dream ballet): Stu flees the front when a more "open" soldier, the gay-and-loving-it Artie (a delightful Jeffry Denman) picks him to be a photographer for Yank! magazine.

(2) Revivals are done to expose new audiences to old classics, or to bask in the memories of the past, but new works like Yank! are able to expose old audiences to new classics, while still giving the memories of the past. Here are the enjoyable song stylings of the '40s, but here's a story that's fresh and relevant, too. Languorous radio riffs like "Blue Twilight," up-tempo comic drifts on "Saddest Gal What Am," and tight choral numbers that can play the military aspect ("Credit to the Uniform") in the same breath as the civilian ("Your Squad is Your Squad"). Want a sweet, quiet duet, sung with nothing more distracting than a spotlight? ("A Couple of Regular Guys.") Want a toe-tapping, bring-the-house down number? ("Click.")

(3) It's normally awfully expensive for audiences to give a new show the benefit of the doubt. But $18 tickets scream for people to cross the river, especially when that new show has Broadway talent (Steggert and also Nancy Anderson, who plays all the female parts), a catchy score, and a revealing glimpse at an often glossed over truth about the military. For that price, you do get a few over-quirked actors, but everyone's hard-working, and the chorus of purposefully stereotyped actors ("We got one of each kind," says the Sarge) are as good as their names imply: Tennessee, Czechowski, Professor, and Rotelli, played to the hilt by Tyson Kaup, James Stover, Daniel Shevlin, and Chris Carfizzi.

Truth is, I have an ulterior motive. The Zellnicks have another musical, Casebook of Hapsburg, R---, and given how hard it is to mount even a black box show, we need more theaters with budget-stretching directors (like Igor Goldin, who crisply uses two rolling metal walls in about every way you can think of, and then some), and more audiences willing to tackle stories that have more than mere fluff. The Gallery Players are on the cusp of both, so let's all just push.

PLAY: "Six Degrees of Separation"

Photo/Jennifer Maufrais

John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation is a tough play to revive: there are seventeen roles, but only really three or four parts, and a good director needs to find enough balance to make the show seem evener than it is. Tom Wojtunik, however, looks like he's riding by the seat of his pants, thrusting props onstage with the aid of two gloved Seussian hands, setting large dramatic scenes in elevated boxes within the backstage wall, and letting the actors generally do as they please.

In some places, Wojtunik's style seems natural: the shock value of a naked hustler, say, or the beautifully bookending image of a spinning, double-sided Kandinsky (my favorite artist). In others--particularly with the children, or when there are many characters on stage--the blocking looks staged, and the acting seems forced. For a show that talks about the death of imagination, it's a little worrisome to see so much generic work, but then again, it's hard to flesh out parts that Guare has intentionally underwritten, especially in ninety minutes.

The challenge of Six Degrees of Separation is staying a character and not becoming a point. Too often in this production--as with the four children, the friends of Ouisa and Flan, and the various detectives and policemen--the roles become examples of disconnection, rather than simply people who happen to be disconnected from one another. (Ben Roberts and Jacqueline van Biene, who play two naive lovers from the West, are proof that you can naturally be both a real person and a model of something at the same time.) And while placing phone callers in a raised black box within the wall seems at first like a good device, it makes it less alienating, and leads the actors to overemote.

However, where Guare has focussed his script is also where Wojtunik has done a marvelous job. Ouisa (Laura Heidinger) comes across well as the socialite wife (two millions dollars, two million dollars) who develops a conscience for the world around her, whereas Flan (Mark Hattan) provides a nice balance for her zeal by remaining a cold yet genial realist. As for Paul, Richard Prioleau really makes him seem like an autodidact, the sort of self-made genius who is an expert at fitting pieces together, which in turn allows him to fit in. His transformation from a rough street youth who slurs the word "bottle," into the self-proclaimed son of Sidney Poitier is a rich one, and the only regret is that his big final scene is at a remove, set (like all phone calls) deep against the back wall.

Ultimately, Six Degrees of Separation comes off more as a pleasant production than as a biting look at the meaning of, and connection to, life. The hurried pace of the opening runs out of breath in the sagging middle of the play, and the actors all seem uniformly pleasant, without a scrap of menace or, more unfortunately, presence. The bold exceptions, both in the acting and Wojtunik's direction, only emphasize the separation, and though there are enjoyable moments, I left the theater a little disillusioned.