Susy Hendrix (actor, Jodi Dominick) and Harry Roat (actor, Arthur Hanket (Photo by Roger Mastroianni) 

Wait Until Dark @ Great Lakes Theater at Playhouse Square

Review by Laura Kennelly

Feeling helpless? Imagine the plight of Susy Hendrix, blind and trapped in a room with a murderous drug dealer. That’s just one plot turn in Wait Until Dark, an engaging thriller staged by Great Lakes Theater at the Hanna Theatre at Playhouse Square through March 12, 2017.

Director Joseph Hanreddy keeps the pace swift and the atmosphere menacing as newlywed-just-back- from- a-Quebec honeymoon Hendrix (a convincingly “blind,” but very trusting Jodi Dominick) slowly begins to realize that she’s not safe in her Greenwich Village basement apartment. It seems that Susy and her husband, Sam (an earnest Jonathan Dyrud) had agreed to help a strange woman they met in Canada to take a doll to a sick child in a New York City hospital. Shortly after they get home, the doll disappears. (This plot device worked in 1966, but I hope we all know by now never to agree to “help out” by taking packages across borders after hearing a good story from strangers.)

The first-rate cast includes Elisa Pakiela as the bratty Gloria who lives upstairs, Arthur Hanket as the enigmatic Harry Roat, Nick Steen as “sympathetic friend” Mike Talman, and David Anthony Smith as “Sgt. Carlino.” Roat, Steen, and Smith also assume other roles. Laura Welsh Berg and Lynn Robert Berg play the late-arriving  and somewhat puzzled police

Highlights? Dominick and Hanket tumble around persuasively in the final scene, both fighting for their lives as the blind Susy becomes more desperate to find a way to take advantage of her disadvantage. A tense scene, where the audience (something I’m glad about) has a better view of what’s going on than the cast does, was created by lighting designer Rick Martin. Robert Westley skillfully choreographed their encounter. Set designer Scott Bradley convincingly fashioned all the rooms needed without scene changes. I would have liked the sound effects to have better reflected Susy’s reliance on her sense of hearing. It was hard to believe characters could come and go up the stairs to the entrance without her hearing them, though she did observe that one man’s footsteps sounded just like his father’s. Perhaps exaggerated door clicks (that door never seemed to shut right) and other sounds could have emphasized that her world was dark, but her ears were keen.

To say more would spoil the fun, but if you must know the plot, just consult wiki at Wait Until Dark. Warning: It’s a lot more fun if you don’t.

Bottom Line: Fast action in dark and confined spaces in a well-played old-fashioned thriller.

Wait Until Dark runs through March 12, 2017. For tickets go to GreatLakesTheater.org or call 216-241-6000. Next up? Hamlet, March 31 through April 15.

Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Bring It On the Musical @ The Beck Center, 2/10 - 26

Review by Laura Kennelly

Wow, was I wrong! [That happens once in awhile, hahaha.] Bring it On the Musical, a rock/hip hop show now playing in regional premiere on the Mackey’s big stage at the Beck Center, turned out to be quite surprising.  I had assumed I’d see a fluffy  musical based on a film about high school cheerleading competitions---a great subject to showcase dance, but not one too intellectually or emotionally “deep.”

In fact,  it did showcase athletic dancers and singing cheerleaders, but it was also an unexpected exploration of “adaptation”--in both the word’s literal and figurative (or emotional) sense. With a libretto by Jeff Whitty, music by Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda (yes, that Lin-Manuel), and lyrics by Amanda Green and Miranda, this 2011 musical (based on a motion picture) enjoyed a national tour before playing on Broadway for a limited run in 2012.

Literally, the plot turns on adaptation manifested by two girls: pretty head cheerleader Campbell (played with vulnerability and charm by Kailey Boyle) and her friend, zaftig Bridget (an earnest, very likeable Shelby Griswold). The two become even faster friends when they both have to adjust quickly to a new school thanks to sudden school redistricting policies which force them to leave their beloved cheerleading squad at good old Truman High. Their new school, Jackson High, has a funky urban vibe, but it doesn’t have a cheerleading squad. It does, however have a “crew,” run by the redoubtable Danielle (Shayla Brielle). Danielle’s dancing posse includes Nautica (sassy Joy Del Valle) and the sexually ambiguous La Cienega (a glam Nick Drake, more about this below).

The two transfer students learn to adapt, picking up new vocabularies and new attitudes. At last, after various missteps and fumbles and lies, Campbell begins to fit in. She inspires the Jackson High team to compete against her old squad, now captained--after some rather mysterious “coincidences” by the very freshman Campbell herself had added to the team, the innocent-looking little Eva (played with scary glee by Abby DeWitte).

Ah, our girl Campbell might have been more wary if she had seen the classic film, “All About Eve,” but by contest time Eva has taken up with Campbell’s old boyfriend, Steven (Jonathan Young, who beautifully satirizes the “perfect” boyfriend with silly puppy sweetheart rituals). Campbell’s former besties at Truman, Skylar (a self-centered, yet glamourous Victoria Pippo) and Kylar (a clueless but cute MacKenzie Wright) prove outstanding glimpses of why high school popularity  is a fleeting thing.

The rest of the marvelous ensemble cast, some thirty-two Baldwin Wallace students in all, offered a polished performance despite at least one substitution in a major role the night I was there. Sporting a dramatic wig, understudy Nick Drake smoothly stepped into the alt-campy role of La Cienega, one of Danielle’s crew. Drake completely sold it--making the statuesque beauty’s  remark about knowing plenty about discrimination both funny and touching.

But the show had a point beyond the vagaries of cheerleading competitions and that’s the figurative adaptation I mentioned. This transcending motif developed throughout the story as we watched Campbell and Danielle, both dominant, strong young women, learn to see past social and racial differences. This meaning is perhaps best expressed near the show’s end when Danielle sings “I Got You.” She tells Campbell, “I thought you were a spoiled rich, uptight little white bitch, now I think you're just white.” Such thoughts can sound preachy, but they seemed earned here.

On the down side: The Broadway production featured a professional cheerleading team for the stunts, an advantage this production lacked. The result? A few injuries (common to all athletic efforts, think how injury-prone high school sports can be) and as an overheard commentator remarked “You get a different show every night.” However, none of that was evident to the audience that watched this cheer-worthy show pulled off with heart and guts.

Helping to “Bring It On” were Director Will Brandstetter, Music Director Peter Van Reesema,  Associate Music Director Alyssa Kay Thompson, Choreographer Martín Céspedes, and Cheer Choreographer Mary Sheridan.

Bottom Line: Delicious fun for those of us who used to be cheerleaders and for those of us who never led a cheer in our lives.

For tickets, call (216) 521-2540 or go online at www.beckcenter.org. The Beck Center is at 17801 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood. The show closes February 26, 2017

Photo by Roger Mastroianni

The King and I @ Playhouse Square, Feb. 7-26, 2017

Review by Laura Kennelly

Who doesn’t love a bit of fantasy in February? This month the KeyBank Broadway Series at Playhouse Square offers The King and I, a classic Golden Age musical currently in the Connor Palace Theatre (through Feb. 26). Directed by Bartlett Sher, this is the recently-produced and much acclaimed Lincoln Center production that won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival.

The opening scene is breathtaking: Filmy fabric curtains part and a blood-orange sky flames out behind a ship as it slowly hoves into view, looking as if it’s about to fall off the stage if it doesn’t stop in time. (It brings back the scene in Phantom of the Opera  when we’re not sure about that chandelier plummeting across the audience). After that introduction, it was easy to settle back and wait to be reminded of all the reasons the show has been winning hearts since 1951.

Good things weren’t hard to find. The story (cobbled together from a novel based on a memoir), concerns some of widow Anna Leonowens’ experiences in the 1860s when she came to Bangkok to serve as tutor to the King of Siam’s multitude of wives (dozens) and children (even more dozens). It’s touted as “East meets West,” but Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I draws its power from love stories.

There’s the unspoken love (or at least appreciation) that slowly blossoms when feisty woman (Anna, of course) meets feisty man (the King). Anna (a schoolmarmish Laura Michelle Kelly) shows her young son (Graham Montgomery) how to overcome fear with the optimistic “Whistle a Happy Tune” and muses about her loss in “Hello, Young Lovers.”

Although a lovely vocalist, Kelly seemed stuck in “teacher” mode so that a little extra frisson possible when dealing with the King (played with charm and verve by Jose Llana) didn’t really materialize. That is more likely to be true to what might have really happened than the “East meets West” vibe, but reality is overrated in a classic musical. A perfect tyrant, Llana’s King postured appropriately and sang powerfully, especially in “A Puzzlement” and, of course, with Anna in “Shall We Dance.”

Ah, but there was plenty of romance between Tuptim (the utterly lovely Manna Nichols) and Kralahome (the dashing Brian Rivera). As the only true romantic pairing in the show, they share  a wonderful duet (“We Kiss the Shadow”), but pay a high price for their love. (Young lovers often pay a high price in Rodgers and Hammerstein shows; South Pacific came out only two years earlier with the tragic story of Lt. Cable and Liat.)

The King’s first wife, Lady Thiang (Joan Almedilla), shines in the gorgeous “Something Wonderful” as she expounds on the tricky nature of love and acceptance between fallible human beings. Almedilla turned what might have been a “ho-hum” justification of polygamy into lyric emotion that, if applause is any measure, touched most of that night’s audience.

Best thing in the show? The ballet based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel of the period, A wonderfully fabricated “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” features over a dozen dancers portraying main characters Eliza (Lamae Caparas), Uncle Thomas (Amaya Braganza), Angel/George (Nobutaka Mochimaru), Topsy (Yuki Ozeki), Simon of Legree (Rommel Pierre O’Choa), Little Eva (Michiko Takemasa) as well as Dogs, Guards, and others. The choreography by Christopher Gattelli was based on the original choreography by Jerome Robbins. Dance Captain Yuki Ozeki and assistants Kelli Youngman and Andrew Cheng also deserve high praise for this enlivening, skillfully executed interlude.

Other dancing, especially the sweeping waltzes, added froth and glamour (even when the hoop skirts were used to comic effect). Doing justice to the rich score, Gerald Steichen conducted the small orchestra that included many local musicians.

Bottom Line: I went to this critically-lauded The King and I expecting to be blown away, and there were many good moments, but overall it seemed as if it lacked heart, something missing. But, perhaps, “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” made up for it all. I think it did.

For tickets or more information go to www.playhousesquare.org