Oscar E Moore

If you have ever been rejected by a woman, missed a kiss on a first date, discovered that your girl friend has a boyfriend or been baffled by what “making out” meant or if you have been that woman on the other side of that missed kiss you will identify and laugh yourself silly at the stories being told by master story teller “I’m just like you guys in the audience” Mike Birbiglia in his new one- man show “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend” now running at the Barrow Street Theatre.

This is a true human comedy at its best as Mike puts his life, relationships and beliefs on his sleeve or rather in our face in a wonderful endearing manner.  Mike is one cool guy even though he would have us believe that he was once a somewhat overweight nerd unable to deal with the opposite sex.

Despite one of the funniest segments – a list of reasons NOT to get married, Mike has managed to get married and stay happily married to Jen who shows up as a major character  continually refusing to get into heated arguments with him by quietly saying “That’s how I feel.”

Mike’s easy going manner makes him a natural storyteller.  His very original choice of words is a delight to hear and he has structured the stories as a play not just a series of stand up comedy rifs.

Director Seth Barish has urged Mike to be more physical than in his last one-man show Sleepwalk With Me.  Mike’s descriptions are funny enough but when he puts his entire body into the telling it is uproarious as in his recounting of his experience on “The Scrambler” an amusement park ride where he ate just a bit too much of everything before getting on and his equating “making out” to a dog eating spaghetti.

There are hysterical bits about cell phones, Lesbian terrorists, Texas and lateness – Mike seems to digress a lot but the digressions are always fun and lead us back to the uneasy predicaments that he has a way of always getting into.

Including a near fatal car accident.  Funny, yet serious too.  Mike even has a copy of the ridiculous accident report that made him reassess what was truly important in his life blown up on a pull down screen as evidence.  That’s his only prop.  Besides a stool.  That’s all he needs to augment his terrific sense of humor and take on life.  No special effects.  Just Mike.  He’s special enough.  Oh, there is one – a strobe light is used during his well deserved and just as funny curtain call.

Go.  You’ll have a great time.  Bring a friend.  Or two.  The more boyfriends and girlfriends the merrier.  There are more laughs per minute than any other comedy around.

www.GirlfriendsBoyfriend.com   Photo:  Joan Marcus

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Elizabeth Stanley & Max von Essen

What’s love got to do with it?  Practically nothing in this explicit banquet of fornication served up by director Jack Cummings III in his reimagined, remounting of Michael John LaChiusa’s HELLO AGAIN (which is loosely based on LA RONDE by Arthur Schnitzler) in its first major New York revival now playing in a loft space at 52 Mercer Street, redesigned as some sort of sophisticated private sex club.

Ten large round tables, some high some low, draped in white cloths in a room painted black with various mirrors hung on the wall facing the musicians and dim lights overhead await the ten actors who will display their talents both vocal and sexual.   It’s a bit unsettling and very titillating.

In episodic scenes that span different eras, to allow the composer to use many different styles of music to fuel the atmosphere with feelings of lust and carnal gratification, we meet those lost unhappy souls searching for love or at the very least lust all the while singing the words and music of Mr. LaChiusa. 

Most difficult to swallow at first hearing.  The dialogue is almost entirely sung through with nary a melody to be remembered.  The most melodic music occurs as the scenes and bed partners change.

The ten exceptional actors perform the score with incredible vocal ability, feeling and skill.  It’s not an easy score to sing.  Striving to sound like Sondheim but without the razor sharp wit or cleverness, Mr. La Chiusa’s words and music disappoint.

But the actors do not in this bed hopping story that starts with a whore (Nikka Graff Lanzarone) who meets a Soldier (Max von Essen) who meets a Nurse (Elizabeth Stanley) who meets a College Boy (Robert Lenzi) who meets a Young Wife (Alexandra Silber) who is seen with her Husband (Bob Stillman) who meets a Young Thing (Blake Daniel) who meets a Writer (Jonathan Hammond) who is involved with an Actress (Rachael Bay Jones) who is involved with a Senator (Alan Campbell) who meets the whore – Hello again!

All of them have various fully clothed, provocative sexual encounters atop the tables or in the central bed right under our noses where bared buttocks pound away.

They are a depressing lot and you are left with a melancholy aftertaste as you leave the show feeling for these people who desperately want to fulfill their needs in their thirst for happiness.  But are they searching to share love with someone or just looking for a quickie?

Extended through April 10^th.  Certainly worth a visit.  www.transportgroup.org 

Photo:  Carol Rosegg

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The not so secret life of fast talking, break-dancing, master ad-libber, sometimes short of breath, self described light skinned Latino maniac John Leguizamo is on display at the Lyceum Theatre in all his glory in his newest one man autobiographical show GHETTO KLOWN.  This guy is really funny.  A great story teller.  A great writer.  A great mimic.  With an even greater ego.  Ergo, a one man show.

For all those interested in having a wild and fun evening hearing about his family and friends, his highs and lows, the agents, the directors and co-stars, the drugs, the therapy, the depressions, the girl friends and his wife and kids make sure you don’t miss this hysterical show and tell production directed with great dexterity by Fisher Stevens.

The projections by Aaron Gonzalez add immensely to all the fun.  It’s too bad the screen is placed so far over on the right side of the stage that some people have obscured views.  However they have been smart enough to install smaller screens for those sitting on the right side of the theatre so that they can watch as though they were on a plane.

That complaint aside there really is nothing else to complain about.  Leguizamo delivers the goods and the dirt about such people as Brian De Palma, Al Pacino, Lee Strasberg, Sean Penn, Don Johnson, Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal and shares with us his odd yet seriously dysfunctional relationship with his mom and pop and granddad – hitting on them without mercy and mimicking them to a tee and then turning all serious and poignant.

The titles of his other shows – Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak and Sexaholic…a love story kind of says it all.   Never having seen any of them and hearing that this show runs approximately two and half hours I wondered how could he possibly have enough material to keep our attention riveted on his performance and how many stories can he possibly tell that would keep us in stitches all evening long.  Well, he does.  And does it to perfection.

When he couldn’t find work or got parts that were meaningless he started to write and perform his life on stage.  We are the lucky recipients of for what is for him free therapy. One of the highlights is the recurring video of when he’s depressed which is priceless.  I refuse to give away any of his one-liners for that would ruin all the surprises you will have in store for you when you go visit John Leguizamo venting in Ghetto Klown.  Highly recommended.

www.ghettoklownonbroadway.com  Photo:  Carol Rosegg

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At Wednesday night’s performance of Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia, three quarters into the first act where I was dying of boredom there was a much more important medical emergency.  An older gentleman across the aisle had to be taken by stretcher out of the theatre.  The house lights went up the curtain came down and we waited until the stricken man had left.  I hope he recovers.  Unfortunately, that was the most exciting thing to happen at the Ethel Barrymore theatre that evening.

Every season, it seems, we get a dose of intellectual adrenalin in the form of a play usually from across the pond – whether we like it or not.  One show becomes the must see snob hit to offset some of the silly but entertaining musicals that also get produced.

Arcadia seems to fit the bill nicely.  Sir Tom Stoppard is a well respected, prolific playwright and some consider him to be a genius.  He is clever, intelligent and has a wonderful way with words.  When you can understand them.  He is also a man of many ideas.  Ideas that encompass mathematics, science, poetry, Latin, gardening and sex – ad infinitum.

First produced in 1993 Arcadia has returned, not with a vengeance but in a room temperature production directed by the equally talented David Leveaux with a cast that includes Billy Crudup, Raul Esparza, Noah Robbins, Grace Gummer, Margaret Colin and their fellow British actors: Bel Powley, Tom Riley and Lia Williams.  And a turtle named Lightning. 

Not all are first rate in this play that spans centuries set in the same cold and stark great room at an English country estate Sidley Park designed by Hildegard Bechtler.  Where  writer Hannah Jarvis (Lia Williams) is investigating a hermit that once lived on the property and Bernard Nightingale (Billy Crudup) an historian is investigating what happened to Byron and a duel way back then with the help of Valentine (Raul Esparza) a specialist in mathematics.  They swap theories that are more lecture than dramatic and very slowly bridge the gap with the past.

The past being the precocious thirteen year old Thomasina Coverly (Bel Powley whose high pitched voice makes many lines inaudible) a math whiz kid on the cusp of sexual awakening with her handsome, rakish tutor Septimus Hodge (Tom Riley) who has had sex with the wife of Ezra Chater (David Turner) in the Gazebo.

Noah Robbins straddles both eras as the strange and mostly silent Gus Coverly and the strange and talkative Augustus Coverly – sharing that honor with the aforementioned turtle.

It is only the discussions of sex that awaken the audience from their stupor induced by the long lectures that permeate the play and the delightful performances of Billy Crudup as the modern day know it all ego maniac who is so very much impressed with himself and Mr. Riley as the randy tutor that make the evening tolerable.  www.ArcadiaBroadway.com    Photo:  Carol Rosegg

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It’s not until the third act of Three Men on a Horse, the 1935 farce written by John Cecil Holm & George Abbott which is being revived (and I use the term loosely) by The usually right on target The Actors Company Theatre at the Beckett on Theatre Row that this comedy hits its full stride with the entrance of James Murtaugh as Mr. Carver, the owner of the greeting card company that Erwin Trowbridge (Geoffrey Molloy appearing very much like George Gobel who played the role in the flop musical version “Let It Ride” ) the hero of the piece works for, writing poetic verses for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day et al.

Mr. Murtaugh has just the right attitude, the right demeanor, the right exaggeration of exasperation and frustration, the right energy to make this farce work as it should.  If only the rest of the company were up to his level this review might be a rave.

“Might” being the key word here.  The play itself is based on the mildly amusing, one joke premise that Erwin, a mild mannered man married to spendthrift Audrey (Becky Baumwoll who reminds one of a cross between Olive Oyl and Blondie Bumstead acting very much in a cartoon-ish mode) picks winning horses as a hobby on his way to and from work – on a bus – from Ozone Heights, New Jersey to New York City.  He keeps a record of all his imagined “winnings” in a little black book that his wife finds and all hell is supposed to break loose when on a drunken bender Erwin falls into the hands of a group of real horse players at the bar in a New York Hotel.

You almost expect them to break out in a chorus of “I got the horse right here” – Fugue for Tinhorns from Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls.  All the familiar Damon Runyon characters are on the loose here.

Patsy (a wonderfully sleazy yet debonair ring leader Gregory Salata) and his cohorts Charlie (a nervous Jeffrey C. Hawkins) and Frankie (a mugging Don Burroughs).  Mabel, Patsy’s gal who has to hock her clothes and bracelets when the horses aren’t winning is played with the usual dumb blonde finesse by Julianna Zinkel with a dash of nice vulnerability and compassion.  As the bartender Harry (Ron McClary) scores as does Erwin’s brother-in-law real estate magnate Clarence Dobbins (Scott Schafer).

When they discover Erwin’s gift they want in and sober him up, offering him a percentage of all the winning races if he just continues to use his  “mental betting” to their advantage.  He agrees but never bets on his own.  That would ruin everything.  And according to Hoyle it almost does.

Part of the fun is seeing all this unravel.  But no matter what director Scott Alan Evans comes up with from the pre-show taking of bets from the audience for a miniature horse race that opens the show (winners collect during the first intermission) to the great period music used for the scene changes of the troublesome set designed by Brett J. Banakis to Mabel’s ex-Follies Girl specialty number to the use of the voice of legendary track announcer Dave Johnson, the one note Three Men on a Horse seems to be stuck in the paddock.

“And they’re off” takes on a whole new meaning.  The Actors Company Theatre is surprisingly off their usual winning streak here.   www.tactnyc.org  Through April 16th     Photo:  Stephen Kunken

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Beneath all the glitz and glamour of this highly entertaining musical pastiche, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which aptly is running at the Palace Theatre, beats a heart that pulses with love and understanding.  It’s not just a show about drag queens.  It is a show about the human spirit that can overcome just about anything in high heels, fountains of feathers, and false eyelashes.  

The Wow! Factor comes into play about every ten seconds as one incredibly costumed production number after another has you wondering where and who to focus on.  It’s a visual extravaganza unlike anything seen on the New York stage in recent history.  Las Vegas yes.  But even Priscilla outdoes Vegas with the imaginative slew of costumes created by Tim Chappel & Lizzy Gardiner on display here.  I mean paint brushes and cupcakes that outdo even Disney and showgirls that are more fabulous than those at the Lido in gay Paris.

Which brings me back to the simple yet effective storyline on which all this fantastic fabulousness is fastened.

Tick (Will Swenson) has been asked by his ex-wife Marion (Jessica Phillips) to help put on a show far from his life in Sydney (he is a drag queen called Mitzi), in Alice Springs Australia where she has a casino and lives with their six year old son Benji (Ashton Woerz).  He tries to back out but when his son who knows nothing of what his father is or does makes him promise to come, he agrees – asking an old friend Bernadette, a dignified and classy drag queen of a certain age (Tony Sheldon) and the much younger, buff and promiscuous Adam (drag name: Felicia/Nick Adams) to come along for the ride and to help with the production.

Three drag queens on a bus called Priscilla.  A bus that should be nominated for some sort of award as it is a major player in this musical.  Designed by Brian Thompson who also did the sets, Priscilla all but sings.  It is a marvel of design and engineering and is put to exquisite use by director Simon Phillips.

Three drag queens that are each in search of happiness.  Along the way they meet up with some local discrimination offset by great musical numbers that are an eclectic collection of disco, Madonna, opera and of all people Jerome Kern.  It’s a great score culled from many composers and shoehorned into the slight but surprisingly moving storyline.  It’s sort of a gay Mamma Mia!

Will Swenson is all high energy, charm and introspection and delivers some of the more reflective scenes with great sensitivity especially with his son.  Double jointed Nick Adams with his manly physique delivers his sarcastic quips (just about every gay joke ever said finds its way into the script by Stephan Elliott & Allan Scott) with ease as well as expertly lip-syncing “Sempre Libre” atop Priscilla in all his glory.  Tony Sheldon is phenomenal.  Playing for real and for keeps. He is all woman at all times and we love him when he falls for the mechanic Bob (C. David Johnson) who repairs their broken down bus en route.  Their scenes are truly touching.

On top of everything else, quite literally, are three divas (Jacqueline B. Arnold, Anastacia McCleskey, Ashley Spencer) who sing hanging from the raters of the Palace Theatre and add super vocal power, humor and get to glam up with each appearance.  Nathan Lee Graham as Miss Understanding rocks those rafters too.

The non-stop and inventive choreography is by the late Ross Coleman which is supervised by the very talented Jerry Mitchell.

To sum up, see this wonderful feel good musical and be Wowed! over and over again.  And take a tip from those three drag queens who encourage us to be ourselves, find happiness and above all to survive.     www.priscillaonbroadway.com       Photo:  Joan Marcus

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To quote Cole Porter’s lyric in referring to Double Falsehood the newest arrival at the Classic Stage Company allegedly written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher staged in 1613 by Shakespeare’s Company The King’s Men called The History of Cardenio and then lost and then found (all three copies) and then adapted for the 18^th Century by Lewis Theobald – “Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?”

There’s a good reason that Double Falsehood – an intellectual experiment – hasn’t been produced in all these years.  It’s not a very good play whoever authored it.  Shades of Shakespeare abound in bits and pieces of “Romeo and Juliet” “Hamlet” “Macbeth” “The Taming of the Shrew” et al.  I lost count after the fake death in a nunnery by Leonora.  But I’m getting far ahead of myself.

The production itself is beautifully staged by Brian Kulick.  It is stylish and intriguing.  The set, however, a back drop –  a collection of hanging Persian carpets (Oana Botez-Ban who has also designed some fetching costumes) – reminded me of an off ramp exit on I-95 near Stamford Connecticut where they sell such items.  Three large carpets are swished around by the actors in the first act and they thankfully disappear in the second when the action moves out of doors.  But back to the play.

Good brother Roderick (an excellent Bryce Gill) tries to reign in his roguish, wild, womanizing, cad of a sibling Henriquez (a believable Slate Holmgren) after he rapes Violante (a most natural and winning Mackenzie Meehan) and then attempts to seduce Leonora (a beautiful Hayley Treider who tends to sign her lines which she later corrects) who is in love with Henriquez’s friend Julio (a sympathetic Clayton Apgar) and the daughter of Don Bernardo (a bellowing, over blown Jon Devries).  

The Duke (a sedate Philip Goodwin) father of Roderick and Henriquez starts the play off in a somewhat incoherent way and I lost interest fifteen minutes after it began.  But then something happens – the story begins – and we get involved in this convoluted saga.  Perhaps it is also the admirable acting from most of the company that transcends the mediocre script that aids our involvement.

A letter is most important, somewhat like the handkerchief in Othello.  And Violante, seeking revenge, dresses as a lad only to be found out and manhandled by a shepherd after singing a lovely song in Act II.  Julio bares his manly chest and goes a bit mad, covered in mud and there is a version of a balcony scene without any memorable lines.

The two women are spirited and strong willed refusing to be at the mercy of men, refusing to meekly obey and are determined to get what they deserve which adds just the right modernity to the proceedings.  When was this written? 

Leonora refusing to adhere to the arranged marriage deal between the two fathers eventually wins back her Julio.  And Violante gets her revenge on Enriquez.

All’s Well That Ends Well or is it Much Ado About Nothing?  Only you can decide.

www.classicstage.org     Through April 3^rd.

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What an event!  The hottest free ticket in town!  No one could have foreseen that “The Spidey Project” a musical written in thirty days with zero budget would open and close at the PIT (Peoples Improv Theatre 123 East 24^th Street) on the eve of the day of infamy (the Ides of March) of the much delayed – yet postponed again – opening of that infamous “Spider Man – Turn Off  The Dark” (March 14^th, 2011).  But it did.  And it did so brilliantly.

Funny.   Quick.  Clever.  Imaginative.  And cheap (in the good sense of the word).  The Spidey Project won over its SRO audience completely at the 8 pm performance that I was privileged to attend and was overflowing with its 10pm devotees waiting to enter as I left.

What a shame that because of something as stupid as “rights” we shall never see “The Spidey Project” again.  It shall remain the cult hit of 2011.  It shall be remembered as one of the funniest evenings at the PIT.  It shall, hopefully, catapult the creators into being able to write another musical equally full of wit and merriment and melody.  It will spawn tee shirts emblazoned with “I was there with Spidey 3/14/11”.

Justin Moran came up with the idea.  He directed.  He also is co writer for the book and lyrics with Jon Roufaeal.  He’s wonderful.

The moment I heard about the show I wanted to see it as I had seen Justin’s POPE! An Epic Musical at Fringe Festival 2010 and thought very highly of it.  The guy is smart and amusing and is what musical theatre needs to bring back the excitement, creativity and spontaneity without a sixty five million dollar budget.

Many of the memorable cast members of Pope! gave of their time and talent to bring this show to the lucky few given the golden ticket to a Saturday Night Live version of the Spider Man legend.

With simple props and wonderfully pulsating melodic music by Doug Katsaros and Adam Podd.  We await their Broadway debuts. 

Mr. Katsaros’ “Chipotle”, a perfect product placement Samba infused number, was one of the highlights.  As was the sweet romantic “When I Look at You” which is hysterically interrupted by the “Villain Song”.   You will never forget “I am Hero” and the infectious finale.

The incredibly talented cast : Liz Bachman, Claire Neumann, Michael Lutton, Justin Moran, Ryan Nelson, Travis Nilan, Louie Pearlman, Robin Rothman and Jon Roufaeal should be on every casting directors must see list.

The unusual and amusing choreography by David Rossetti and the acrobatic and awe inspiring fight sequences choreographed by Dylan Giannunzio added immensely to the explosive spirit of the evening.

We all hope that whatever happens to that other Spider Man musical that Justin Moran may one day get the rights to proceed full speed ahead with “The Spidey Project”.  You never know.

www.thespideyproject.blogspot.com

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Not only have Amy Estes and Lenny Leibowitz taken on the mammoth challenge of starting up a new repertory company (MARVELL REP) which is now presenting four productions at the Abingdon Theatre on West 36^th Street but they have chosen four challenging plays to mount.  Not an easy task.

Nora by Ingmar Bergman.  In the Shadow of the Glen by John Millington Synge.  Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca and The Dybbuk by S. Ansky.  All but the Synge plays have been translated – for better or for worse.  And all four feature female protagonists.  Women subjugated by the men and mores of their respective time periods.

BLOOD WEDDING is an odd play and an even odder choice for a fledgling company to stage – where natural events meet up with the moon, metaphoric songs, knives, lots of anger and angst.

Mr. Leibowitz has done his best to hold the piece together by framing it with an excellent flamenco guitarist (Mike Rosengarten) playing original music by Adam Knauss which adds appropriate and beautiful underscoring to many of the episodic scenes and scene changes in this ninety minute tragedy.

A tragedy that unfortunately has too many different acting styles on stage for its own good.

From the strong Medea like performance of Lorraine Serabian who is the very angry mother (a mother who hates the family of the woman that her only son has asked to marry as they murdered her husband and his brother) to the all too contemporary bridegroom (Nicolas Greco) to the beautiful naturalness and magnetic performance of the bride (Evgeniya Radilova) whose authentic accent only puts undo emphasis on the others who haven’t one.

The bride to be was in love with Leonardo (Hamish Allan-Headley) who has come back into her life as she is about to wed.  He still loves her and they run off together which doesn’t lead to a happy ending for anyone.  Especially his pregnant wife (Stephanie Lynne Mason) and their baby.

BLOOD WEDDING is a difficult piece to pull off and Marvell Rep hasn’t quite found their rhythm as a rep company yet.  But they are just getting started and must be commended for their courage.

With THE DYBBUK, Lenny Leibowitz and his company of twenty two actors have hit their full stride with a powerful and mystical production of this play which deals with a pre-arranged wedding that goes awry.  Never has so much been done with so little.  It is an amazing accomplishment.  It is compelling theatre at its best.

The stark and simple set (Tijana Bjelajac) works exceedingly well with the rearrangement of a table and benches and an upright cabinet where the Torah and Holy Scrolls are stored.  The excellent lighting design by Nicholas Houfek adds to the overall mystical atmosphere.  The staging by Mr. Leibowitz is fluid and cinematic and holds your attention throughout.  He is aided by choreographer Gabrielle Orcha who has managed to make this small space explode with some fine dances – never making the stage appear to be overcrowded.

The costumes by Susan Nester in shades of grey black and white perfectly evoke the time and characters. Less is certainly more here.

You will be riveted by the story, the way it unfolds and the fine acting abilities of this new repertory company.  The use of a highly original score by Adam Knauss played beautifully by Tareq Abuissa on Cello and Alex Spangher on Bass is spellbinding.  How daring to use live musicians and how wonderfully they add to the piece.

Mr. Leibowitz makes some bold choices in all four productions.  Here he has cast a woman (Loni Ackerman) as the messenger – empowering a woman in this world where men dominate is a daring choice that pays off.  As if in a trance, as if channeling the messages that she is delivering Ms. Ackerman is stoic and in control as she delivers the words – almost omens of things to come – appearing as an other worldly figure that never intrudes but whose presence is always felt.

The strikingly beautiful and excellent actress Rachel Claire is Leye the daughter of Reb Sender (a fine Marc Geller) who is to be married to someone rich.  Someone chosen over many others including the man that Leye truly loves – Khonnon (a superb Perri Yaniv).  A man who falls dead upon hearing the news of her marriage and who returns to inhabit the body of Leye as a dybbuk, reclaiming her as his pre-destined bride.

All of the cast members should be mentioned for excellence.  But I have to single out just a few.  Jerry Matz, who adds just the right touch of humor to his roles, Barbara Spiegel as Leye’s granny, Ava Eisenson who always grabs your attention and the outstanding William Metzo as Reb Azrielke who attempts to rid the dybbuk from Leye.

Congratulation are due to one and all.   The Dybbuk runs through April 3^rd and you should make every effort to see it.  Mazel tov, Marvell Rep! 

www.marvellrep.com

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The many musical selections of 60’s hits chosen by director Michael Bush that either aid the many clunky scene changes, introduce a scene or comment upon a scene – which include “What The World Needs Now” (is love sweet love), “These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over You”, “Help!” And “I Got You Babe” in the revival of the Abe Burrows comedy based on a French farce by Barillet & Gredy “Cactus Flower” while nice to hear, hit you over the head with sledgehammer force as to what is going on and interfere with the natural rhythm of the comedy.  Let the comedy speak for itself, however dated it is.

In order for this farce to work the characters have to be believable and believe in what they are saying and must have great comic timing which seems to be abundantly absent here.  

We never believe that two women – the spinsterish dental receptionist to Dr. Julian Winston (Maxwell Caulfield), Stephanie Dickinson (Lois Robbins) and his young mistress Toni Simmons (Jenni Barber) could be so infatuated with the lying lothario Dr. Winston.

Nor do we believe that Toni remotely likes her next door neighbor, a beat-nik writer Igor Sullivan (a bland Jeremy Bobb) who initially saves her from her attempted suicide (by over cooking her chicken cacciatore and leaving on the gas.)

Dr. Winston has told Toni that he is married in order not to marry her, but after her attempted suicide he changes his mind – and promises to divorce his wife.  Only Toni wants to meet the wife who doesn’t exist and so he enlists his receptionist into portraying his wife which leads to all sorts of supposed comical situations.  Which here, rarely pay off.

Mr. Caulfield looks like a bored, stilted, posturing John Wayne instead of the charmer that should charm these two women and us into believing him.

Unfortunately, Ms. Barber has been coaxed into believing that she should follow in the footsteps of Goldie Hawn who won an Oscar for her cinematic portrayal.  Maybe she should have been told that Brenda Vaccaro originated the role and is nothing like Goldie but also extremely funny.  Or perhaps she should have made the role her own.

Lauren Bacall was the original Stephanie and most probably kept the show running with her star power back in the 60’s along with the really charming Barry Sullivan and Ms. Vaccaro.  Lois Robbins has none of the sarcasm and irony that make the lines of this farce sparkle.  Instead of the effervescence of champagne we get the fizzle of a flat bottle of beer.  She does however, by plays end, blossom as does the cactus plant that she keeps on her desk.

The jokes are punctuated with an almost audible ba-da-boom! which only accentuate the most heavy handed line readings as though no one would get their effect without such emphasis.

The cast includes some one dimensional stereo-typical characters:  a hyper sexed older woman Mrs. Durant (an almost embarrassing Robin Skye) a married Cuban diplomat Senor Sanchez (John Herrera) pursuing the receptionist and an obnoxious actor, Harvey Greenfield (Anthony Reimer) whose girl friend Botticelli’s Springtime (honest, that’s her name) played by Emily Walton, needs dental work. 

Perhaps this all worked in Albany last year at the Capital Repertory Theatre where Mr. Bush was producer and director.  Not in Manhattan.  Instead of what could be 14 Karat gold we get 24 Karat lead.

At the Westside Theatre Upstairs.   www.cactusfloweronstage.com  Photo:  Carol Rosegg

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