Beck’s THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM encapsulates pseudo-violence, desire, innocence in blue-grass and farce    Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor `t was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."   The intimate Beck’s Studio Theatre is a perfect venue for meeting and greeting THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM a blue-grass, farcical musical with a book and lyrics by Alfred Uhry and music by Robert Waldman.    The story is based on the 1942 novella by Eudora Welty, which is based on a German fairy tale by the Brother Grimm.      This is a tale of a wealthy businessman, his shrewish second-wife, his beautiful spoiled daughter, a handsome but dastardly polite bandit and a bunch of legendary figures, some real and some invented by Eudora Welty, that takes place in the Natchez Trace.  (Yippie, do-da day!) The first Broadway production, which was directed by Lorain, Ohio native Gerald Freedman, who later headed the Great Lakes Theater, opened in a limited engagement on October 7, 1975.   It ran for 14 performances and 1 preview before setting out on a one-year US national tour. Its success on the road convinced the producers to mount a revamped Big Apple production with an extended book and expanded, heavily bluegrass-tinged score. The music, deemed "country and southern" was arranged for guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass and banjo. (Yah, that there twangy sound!) This second Broadway production opened on October 9, 1976 where it ran for 145 performances and 12 previews.  The tale starts with Clemment Musgrove, the wealthiest planter on the Natchez Trace arriving in town only to have all of the townsfolk trying to steal his money. He finally makes it to a hotel. Little Harp, a largely unsuccessful robber, plots with his brother, Big Harp, who is only a head that he keeps in a briefcase, about how they can steal Musgrove's money.  (You think two heads are better than one?) The duo eventually devisies a plan in which they will  kill him in his sleep. (Owww...scary!) Jamie Lockhart, rescues Musgrove from the Harps by tricking Little Harp into thinking that he killed them and their ghosts attack him. Grateful, Musgrove invites Jamie to his home for dinner and for the chance to meet and woo his greatest treasure, his daughter, Rosamund. (Daddy...the matchmaker.) Farce is difficult to do.  Many parts of the Beck production, directed by Scott Spence, which has great choreography and musical staging by Lauren Marousek, are nicely set up for the telling of the ridiculous, melodramatic tale of overwrought and unbelievable love and lust.  Others are missing.  It features a fine, though, at times overly loud enthusiastic orchestra (Evan Kleve, David Nicholson, Jesse Hogson, Michael Simile and Jason Stebelton), which sometimes drowns out the words of the songs, under the direction of Larry Goodpaster.   Standout cast members are Nic Rhew as Jamie Lockhart, the Gentleman Robber, who possesses a fine singing voice, and, as required, is tall, dark and handsome, Izzy Baker, as the blonde, beautiful, air-headed femme-fatale Rosamund, the daughter of the wealthy Clemment Musgrove, and Jordan Potter, as Musgrove, the wealthy planter.  Seth Crawford, he of slight body and puppy-dog eyes, over-does, much to the audience’s delight, the roll of Goat, the “dumb boy” who is enlisted by her step-mother Salome (Ruby Moncrief-Karten) to carry out her ill-planned scheme to kill Rosamund.  Too bad others didn’t take Crawford’s lead, or weren’t directed to let totally loose. Trad A Burns must have cleaned out all of the antique shops in Lakewood in order to build the marvelously ambitious rustic set! Capsule judgement:  THE ROBBERBRIDGE GROOM is a farcical, nonsensical piece of blue-grass musical theatre fluff, which gets a” funish” production at Beck. The show runs through June 29, 2025.  For tickets call 216-521-2540 or go to beckcenter.org Next up at Beck:  7/11-8/10—CHORUS LINE—The dance centric musical that changed the American musical theatre.  Picture a bare stage, and all the dreams of Broadway performers lay before you. This time, you “gotta get it,” in honor of the 50th anniversary of this Broadway favorite.   (A classic that must be seen and reseen!)   A BELATED CONGRATULATIONS TO EDWARD GALLLAHER ON HIS APPOINTMENT AS PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE, LARRY GOODPASTER AS VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS, and JULIE GILLILAND, VICE PRESIDENT OF INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCMENT AT BECK CENTER FOR THE ARTS.

Preview of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at Porthouse

 

At the age of fifteen Solomon Rabinovich adopted the pseudonym  “Sholem Aleichem,” a Yiddish variant of the Hebrew expression meaning "peace be with you" and used as a greeting.   As an adult he was a European “folkshrayer” (a folk-story teller) who wrote over forty volumes in Yiddish thereby becoming a central figure in Jewish literature, best remembered for his fictional confessions, letters, and monologues.   In spite of the success of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF today, Sholem Aleichem was not a successful playwright in the US in his lifetime.  When he came to the US, near the turn of the 20th century, his plays were not well received because they were “old fashioned” and about experiences the newly arrived immigrants wanted to forget.    Success came three years after his death, when the Yiddish theater actor, Maurice Schwartz, did an adaptation of Aleichem’s TEVYE DER MILKHIKER, which consists of 8 of his tragic-comic stories.   Each of the tales had a farcical plot, employing stylistic humor, with a serious under-belly.  In a classically rabbinic manner, Tevye, the main character, tells stories about his village of Anatevka and life with his wife Golda and his five daughters.  He asks questions of God and sprinkles his speeches with “biblical verses.”  Some of these are mangled and others are just made up.  Of the eight Tevye stories, five were later woven into the script of the musical, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, which became a Tony award winning musical.   Mistakenly, many believe FIDDLER is a translation of a play written in Yiddish (Jewish).  It is not!  The musical was written in English and is based on a compellation of Aleichem’s stories. It was not until 2018, when the National Yiddish Theatre, Folksbiene, mounted a Yiddish adaptation entitled FIDLER AFN DAKH that FIDDLER was spoken and sung in Jewish.   The musical takes place in Tsarist Russia in 1905.  Tevye attempts to maintain traditions while outside influences encroach upon century-long patterns.  His three older daughters each make life changing decisions, which moves them further from customs of their faith, and an edict from the Tsar, that evicts the Jews from their village, further destroys life as Tevye has known it.   When Joseph Stein, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock joined forces to write FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, now recognized as one of the greatest of American musicals, they did so in order to create an homage to their heritage.  A heritage which included hundreds of years of Jews in eastern Europe, whose life style and lives had been destroyed by pogroms (uprisings), forced evacuations, and ultimately by the “final solution,” the Holocaust.     Traditions are the guts of the life of these people, for, as Tevya, the central character indicates, "A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no. But in our little village, you might say everyone is a fiddler on the roof. You might ask, 'if it's so dangerous there, why do we stay up?' Because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!”    The original Broadway production, which opened in 1964, was the first run of a musical to surpass the 3,000-performance mark. In spite of original doubts that it would only be of interest to Jewish audiences, the show has been extraordinarily financially profitable and well-received.  The original production was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, spawned four Broadway revivals, a film adaptation, and countless international, community and school productions, one of which is now on stage at Porthouse Theatre. It may surprise many to know that FIDDLER almost didn’t make it to Broadway. The show’s out-of-town tryouts were met with many of the audience walking out of the theaters before the final curtain.   When Jerome Robbins came in as the new director the problem was unearthed.  He asked what the show was about.  The usual answer was “a dairyman and his marriageable daughters.”  It’s is recounted that Robbins said, “No, no, no, that’s no good.” Someone said, “It’s about the dissolution of traditions, a way of life.”  Robbins responded, “Yes, that’s it.  We have to establish the traditions at the beginning and then the audience will see how they’re breaking down.  That’s the show!  The song has to set up the major theme of the villagers trying to keep their society running as the world around them changes.  It sets the show on a clear journey and the audience’s bought into the tale.”  Instead of walking out, they started to give it standing ovations and a clear path to Broadway and beyond.                          The song “Tradition” (“Traditsye”) replaced the original opening, “We’ve Never Missed a Sabbath Yet” which showed the frantic preparations for the Sabbath but not clearly enough to understand what was to come, which is a requirement for an opening song of a musical.     Robbins added the circle entrance, holding hands, introducing the unity of people of Anatevka.  He then enhanced the theme by adding lots of ferocious dancing, including the bottle and bar dances, to express Jewish robustness and resilience.   It may surprise many that the now famous bottle dance is not a Jewish wedding tradition.     Robbins did “field research” for Fiddler by attending Orthodox Jewish weddings and festivals where he was thrilled with the men's dancing.  He observed one man entertaining the participants by tottering around with a bottle on his head pretending to be drunk.  Research revealed that what the man was doing a traditional Paraguayan dance.  Robbins combined that idea with Klezmer music and the now famous bottle dance sequence came to life.  (“To life, to life, l’chaim.”)   The script went through many titles including TEVYE, A VILLAGE STORY, TO LIFE, ONCE THERE WAS A TOWN, and WHERE POPPA CAME FROM.  Finally, the producers settled on the painting "The Fiddler" by Marc Chagall, one of many surreal paintings he created of Eastern European Jewish life.  The fiddler is a metaphor for survival, through tradition and joyfulness, in a life of uncertainty and imbalance.  Chagall’s art was also the inspiration for the original sets for the show.   The story is carried through not only words, but significant and meaningful music and lyrics.  The score includes such classics as “Matchmaker,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “To Life,” and “Sunrise, Sunset.”   Confession:  Inadvertently, I came to the show the night of the preview performance, a no-no for reviewers.  The comments which follow must be tempered by my not giving the performers and musicians the opportunity to properly prepare for being reviewed.   The role of Tevya will normally be played by Porthouse favorite and Kent State faculty member, Tom Culver.  His understudy, Baldwin Wallace University vocal performance major, Aiden Eddy, performed the role at the preview.  Eddy has a powerful and well-trained voice.  He is a loving Tevya, much in the pattern of Broadway’s Luther Adler and the film’s Topol.  Though there were laughs, he does not play for them through exaggeration as Harvey Fierstein and Zero Mostel did when they played the role.  The scenes where Tevya’s resolves are tested are well-interpreted with sincerity and emotional confusion.  If it was not announced that he was understudy he would have been more than accepted as the “for-real” Tevya.)   The production started with a twist on the norm:  a Hebrew blessing, which was entirely appropriate, set a perfect tone for cuing the audience to the serious underpinning of the tale.  The perfectly pronounced and cantorial sound of Noam Siegel, the recipient of the Dr. Roy Berko Endowed Commemorative Scholarship, was inspiring.   Tevye’s older daughters’ Tzeitel (Marianna Young), Hodel (Ellie Stark) and Chava (Chloe Lee Hall) were all excellent.  Stark’s character development and her vocal rendition “Far From the Home I Love” was a show highlight.   In most productions, the Fiddler appears at the beginning and end of the tale.  Not so with Terri Kent’s inventive direction.  Fiddler Jared Morisue-Lesser, was intertwined within the tale, thus highlighting the importance of continued adherence to tradition throughout the show.     This bowing to tradition was also displayed in actors’ touching the mezuzah (a prayer scroll placed on the doorpost of a Jewish homes) and then kissing the fingers in respect to God, the appropriate wearing of prayer shawls and male head coverings, the kissing of a prayerbook when it was picked up after it was dropped on the floor, and the conservative women’s clothing.   The show’s highlight is Martin Céspedes’s inventive choreography.  Every scene sparkled with meaningful movement.  Mazal tov!   Many of the cast needed to keep in mind that there is a cadence to the way Yiddish, the language of the residences of Anatevka, is spoken.  It is not an accent, but a rhythm.  Accents need not be used, but the cadence is necessary to help create the “tam,” the taste, of the script.   Jennifer Korecki’s large orchestra was cantorial and klezmer-correct, but, at times, needed some work on the blending of sounds.  This should come as the group plays the run-of the-show.   CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  Reviewing a preview performance of a show is a disservice to the director, choreographer, musicians and cast.  Usually this is the first chance to perform before and get used to an audience’s presence.  But, seeing a preview, I did, and I was pleased that Director Terri Kent and choreographer Martin Cespedes’s FIDDLER, was generally set and ready, only needing little polishing needed in vocal cadence, keying and waiting for laughs, and some musical blending.     FIDDLER ON THE ROOF runs until August 11 at Porthouse Theatre, on the grounds of Blossom Music Center.  For tickets call 330-672-3884 or go online to www.porthousetheatre.com.   NEXT UP AT PORTHOUSE:  YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN, a musical based on the “Peanuts” comic strip.  (Note that this is NOT a children’s show.)

PREVIEWS: I'M PUTTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND PUTTING IT ON THE ROAD & CHURCHILL AT WAR

 

I’M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD 

 
Gretchen Cryer (Book and Lyrics) and Nancy Ford (Composer), whose I’M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD which will soon be locally staged by The Musical Theater Project, are known for their “firsts.”  They were the first female writing team in the history of American musical theater and the duo’s NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN (1967) was the first anti-war musical of the Vietnam era.  
 
Their family revues for American Girl—two surveys of strong young women against the backdrop of American history—played over a 10-year period in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Another saga celebrated a free-spirited female teenager, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, was based on Lucy Maude Montgomery’s 1908 novel.  Other creations include ELEANOR: A MUSICAL FANTASY (about Eleanor Roosevelt), STILL GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER,
 (the sequel to their 1978 show), and HANG ON TO THE GOOD TIMES (a musical revue). 
 
As a musical theater historian once pointed out, what makes the Cryer-Ford collaboration unique is that “they have always brought an intensely individual voice to all of their works. They have never been, nor are they ever likely to be, creators who can adapt themselves to concepts other than their own; their songs and librettos have all shown marked originality in both subject matter and viewpoints, as they have consistently reflected the collaborators’ mutual attitudes and deep concerns.”                           
 
I’M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD, which is a look at sexual politics, was an international success.  It had a three-year, 1,000-performance run, in New York and was a milestone in the integration of pop-rock and musical theater. 
 
Generally considered a feminist vehicle, I’M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD, which was a controversial sensation in the late ’70s, is the story of a 39-year-old singer-songwriter who is making a comeback, throwing out “the crap of the past” – her commercial sex kitten image – in order to forge a new identity, writing songs that express how she really feels and who she really is. Her manager (a former lover) is appalled. He likes her the way she used to be and says he can’t sell this new woman. They battle it out to a bittersweet  conclusion.

The score includes such compositions as “Smile,” “In a Simple Way I Love You,” “If Only Things Were Different, ““Lonely Lady, “Old Friend” and ‘Dear Tom.”

Original reviews of the show called it “Brash, funny, very agreeable… it touches a special emotional chord for our times” and “The lyrics, and the music, are effortless.”  
 
The performers in The Musical Theater Project production, which will take place on Friday, June 27 and Saturday, June 28 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, June 29 at 3 pm, are: Joe--CHRIS RICHARDS, Heather--NATALIE GREEN, Alice--MARIAH BURKS, Cheryl--JENNIE NASSER, Jake (Acoustic Guitar) --BENSON ANDERSON, Piano--NANCY MAIER, Keyboard/Synthesizer--DANIEL MAIER, Electric Guitar--MICHAEL SIMILE, Bass--JASON STEBELTON and Drums/Percussion--JUSTIN HART.
 
Tickets are $50 (plus fees) per person for assigned seating. To purchase tickets, go to musicaltheater project.org.   (For a 50% discount on reserved tickets insert the word BERKO on the order form.)

The performances are at Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Rd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118. The building may be accessed from the back parking lot, the front of the building facing Lee Road, and by the pedestrian bridge over Lee Road. Be aware that the pedestrian bridge is only open during the Heights Library operating hours. Please visit the Library website for specific hours. The theatre may be accessed by stairs or by a public access elevator.
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World Premiere of CHURCHILL AT WAR at Actors Summit

The world premiere of CHURCHILL AT WAR is being staged by Actors Summit.  
 
The 90-minute one-person show, which is written by Neil Thackaberry, will star Peter Voinovich.
 
The tale, which is a tribute to one of the world’s greatest leaders, takes the audience deep into the early military experiences that shaped Winston Churchill’s leadership, along with the stirring speeches and sharp wit that defined his legacy. The play paints a vivid portrait of a man whose words and courage changed the course of history.
 
The staging, which will be directed by Thackaberry, will be performed on June 20-29 at Greystone Hall, 103 S High Street in Akron.  Performances are scheduled at 7:30 PM on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with additional Sunday matinees at 2:00 PM.
 
 Tickets at actorssummitproductions.com or 234-817-8414