IN ORDINARY DAYS, CASSIDY FINDS THE PERFECT SCRIPT TO STREAM
Roy Berko(Member: American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
In these days of angst, many theaters have attempted to stream various types of entertainment. The formats have been mostly musical reviews, with a few scripted musicals being attempted.
Most of these pieces haven’t worked too well. It is hard to imagine running through the woods hand-in-hand, dancing cheek-to-cheek, or making love, when there is definitely a screen divide separating the participants.
Adam Gwon’s ORDINARY DAYS is a song heavy, action light musical, that requires little in the way of sets or physical interactions to develop the tale. Many of the songs are solos. Even the duets don’t require much physical interaction.
The story concerns four young New Yorkers whose lives intersect as they search for normalcy and personal and interpersonal connections. They are each searching for, as one of the song’s states, “The Perfect Picture.”
In spite of some personal stress by the characters, they are neither life threatening or a reflection of major pending doom. Which is fine as there is a longing today for ordinary days and normalcy as an escape from the ever-present angst.
As Kristin Netzband, the show’s director states, “The sense of the show is simply of how the lives of four individuals interconnect.”
Of the staging process she states, “Rehearsing during the pandemic proved interesting. The process began virtually before going in-person with social distancing between masked actors taking place in the Cassidy Theatre lobby. Then the staging moved to the actual set, which was on platform levels with plastic sheeting between the characters.”
Zach Palumb is dork-perfect as Warren, the cat sitting artist who paints “pithy sayings” on paper which he distributes around Manhattan.
One day, during his Big Apple wanderings, he finds a notebook. The contents are the research notes of Deb, Rachael Armbruster, she of strong voice and good acting chops, who is a graduate student who has escaped from her hick town, but is frustrated by her studies and her lack of ability to tap into the writings of Virginia Woolf, the subject of her thesis.
Warren and Deb originally are indifferently to each other, but when Warren takes her to the roof of his building, and they discuss their ambitions, they both realize they hoped for something more. Warren throws the papers of his sayings over the roof’s edge. Seeing this, Deb also throws her thesis off the edge.
The other couple is Jason (Pat Miller) and Claire (Kelley Wheelock) who have recently moved in together, but are having doubts about their relationship.
Miller’s “The Spaces Between” is nicely presented, while Wheelock’s “I’ll Be Here” is one of the show’s highlight vocals.
The two couples collide when, as Warren’s papers float downward, Jason who has decided to move on from Claire, finds one of the papers, with the statement,” Don't worry, everything will be OK." Claire also sees the shower of papers, calls Jason on his mobile. After a revelation about a past relationship she realizes that it is okay to move on to her life with Jason.
Obviously this is not a great story line, but it is the music which carries the show.
The production’s musical director is Heidi Herczeg. Though the music was well played, the sounds often drowned out the singing of the performers, making some of the vocals difficult to hear.
CAPSULE JUDGMENT: Cassidy Theatre’s ORDINARY DAYS was a nicely directed and performed production of a story-light script which leant itself to being presented in a streamed format. Kudos to director Kristin Netzband and her cast, Pat Miller, Kelley Wheelock, Rachael Armbruster and Zach Palumb.
The show streams April 9-11, 2021.
Tickets may be purchased here: Buy Tickets
