REVIEW: First two Lyric offerings provide range of emotions
With the first two offerings of their 35th season, the Old Lyric Repertory Company present productions that garner a full range of emotions from very comfortable to, well, not so comfortable.
“Peg O’ My Heart,” which premiered on the East Coast about the same time the 88-year-old Lyric Theatre was first built, is a soft, delightful, almost predictable story of a poor, Irish girl from New York City who has been invited to live with English relatives. The relatives want to introduce her to high society and break her of some of her bad habits and not for simply altruistic reasons — they will receive part of her inheritance (a fortune that is kept secret from her), if she learns to like her new digs.
Peg, played by Vanessa Ballam Brenchley, though, would prefer to take her dog and go home. She can see through the pretentiousness of her newly inherited relatives and their way of life.
Though no stranger to the stage — she was Miss Utah for a year and won the Bert Parks Talent award at the Miss America Pageant, along with numerous local TV and USU Theatre activities — this is Brenchley’s first OLRC opportunity. She delights the audience and carries the production from first scene to last. Her Irish brogue never falters, she projects well and brings out Peg’s pure heart in fine fashion.
The only minor barb to be said might regard costuming: Though intended to project a feeling of lower class, the audience never felt like Peg was dressed in ragamuffin style. That feeling of lower-class Irish upbringing was dependent upon dialogue and Brenchley’s presentation with no help from her clothing.
Brenchley was even given the opportunity to sing by director Vosco Call and her interplay with her co-star — a fluffy dog named Michael — was perfect.
Peg’s aunt Mrs. Chichester and cousins Ethel and Alaric are played by Joan Mullaney, Arika Schockmel and Jason Purdie. Initially Purdie plays Alaric in a manner that grates on the audience, with a effeminate titter and odd mannerisms. But by play’s end, Alaric is a character that everyone has come to delight in, quirky as he is. Mullaney is not asked to stretch much, just act old and British and Schockmel does very well in her who’s-manipulating-who role as cousin Ethel.
Christian Bent is perfect as slimy friend of the family Christian Bent and butler Steven Fehr does well, considering a stiff back and facial gestures are about all he is asked to do.
“Peg O’ My Heart” takes on the look and feel of a circa 1915 production right from the get-go. A strolling quartet — barbershop-like — get the production going and there is even audience participation during some Irish bar tunes. A wonderful advertising drop curtain, used during Lyric productions a half century ago and found in a Logan attic, is also presented.
John Mauldin, a member of the quartet, welds the audience to their seat and takes their hearts in his hand with several solo numbers that lift the production even a notch higher. Scene design is elaborate and top-drawer.
“Peg O’ My Heart” is an audience pleaser, one of the finer productions in recent memory to grace the grand stage of the Old Lyric. It is a comfortable walk through a fanciful park.
Not so with “Boys Next Door.” It didn’t take many minutes into the production to drop this second production into the file marked ” Uncomfortable.”
Not that it is poorly done, mind you. It’s quite well-done. The performances are hard to knock. But patrons could almost read each other’s minds, as nervous titters and hesitant applause sputtered among the half-filled theater.
The dilemma is easy to identify, not so easy to decide upon: While the issue of mental retardation and care for the mentally handicapped is an important social issue, do we laugh at it? Should an audience member feel, well, comfortable watching someone pretending to be mentally challenged just to get a laugh? And are we playing this just for laughs, because I sense there is an underlying and painful message coming?
With these questions constantly on the minds of patrons, comfort levels are challenged to a point not often seen at the Old Lyric. Some patrons left at intermission. And, yes, there is an underlying and important message coming, one that is both portrayed by all on stage and pointedly made in particular by USU student Duane Finley, who plays Lucien.
Lucien is one of four mentally handicapped roommates who live in a “group home,” supervised by Jack, who also serves as narrator, played by Lee Grober. Others living in the home are Arnold (Ron King), Norman (Phillip Lowe) and Barry (Steven Fehr). Lowe, particularly, is outstanding in this portrayal of the frustrations and emotions of these special roommates. The idiosyncrasies of each roommate are brought out in fine fashion by all involved. Also a delight is Arika Schockmel, who portrays Sheila, Norman’s favorite dance partner at “the center” for the handicapped.
Finley deserves a rousing pat on the back for his ability to drive home the underlying message of “The Boys Next Door.” The production is a simple one — it could have been done as a reader’s theater and probably has been — but the thoughts spawned and emotions twisted are anything but simple.
Both productions continue in repertory until Aug. 4. Tickets and schedule information can be obtained by checking with the USU Ticket Office or Lyric information, 797-1500.