Theater at the Beach.. an Adventure

Theater at the Beach.. an Adventure

You all know what I guru I am where theater is concerned, so while making my annual pilgrimage to my favorite beach area in Delaware a few weeks ago, I opted to attend a performance of Clear Space Theater Company’s production of “Broadway: 100 Years”.   Now, before you groan too loudly, let me defend my choice!  I love all theater and classic (also known as “Standard”) theater, while less spectacular by today’s standards, is still one of my favorites.  “The Good Old Shows” as I refer to them are the root of all theater, and the breading ground that morphed into the grand spectaculars we see today. So an evening of standards presented by a live theater company was right up my alley.

You all probably also know that I am a ruthless, critical, demanding audience member with impeccably high standards. Let’s face it, where theater is concerned, I’m a VERY tough person to impress.  I’m not shy about pointing out mistakes, slip-ups, technical glitches, and other less favorable anomalies that, admittedly, are often unavoidable during live shows. This, I suppose, comes from my years as a theater director and the quest the perfection that I believe every director should pride him (or her) self on. I don’t believe there is any room for error, and strive to impart that dedication to every member of my production staff – that’s probably why some folks won’t work with me again… hmmm.. *BUT* that’s another post.

So let’s put it together before the curtain goes up: 1) Community Theater; 2) Small Beach Town; 3) “Company” Theater (that means the same people do many shows throughout the season); 4) Company Theater currently rotating two (2) full-scale shows and one (1) review show on a six-day a week rotation. If you do the math, it’s a recipe for disaster .

THE SCENE: Newly built theater. On closer inspection: Newly Built Multipurpose space. It’s a theater, and artist residence, and art gallery, and working pottery studio, and working painting studio. Cool, but lots going on.  The theater is a flat “ballroom” with 100 or so folding chairs (that should have told me something).  Down the main aisle is an empty stage with a backdrop that has advertisements being projected on the screen from the back of the house – do I need to explain what “focus” means?  “Charlie’s Rental Units... the Best Bet at the Beach.” Dear God… here we go.

THE SET: Um, no set... well kind of a set:  two hanging banners with “scene of the ages” type art, suspended by wires from the catwalk… no... roof.  Ingeniously created so that as the years pass, they can be flipped around with a NEW “scene of the ages” type art that looked just like the last one. Ugh. This “set” has a tendency to swing back and forth... particularly the one on stage right – especially when someone walks by it. Apparently, that’s the only exit from the stage... stage right... because EVERYONE walked by it. Humph.

THE ACTORS: Mind you... a handful of actors that are probably over tired from their other two productions they’re in. “What’s today? Saturday? Ahh, it’s the Broadway show tonight.” Kudos for the attempt, but the result leaves some “excitement” out of the performance. More on that later... So, the actors are what I’d call your run-of-the-mill stereotypical character actors. What I mean by this is that you could “label” (very politically incorrect... but I don’t care) each actor as a type of player. So the eight person cast was comprised of the following predictable lot:

• The overweight male comic actor; 
• The male older “I’m still in it” theater type; 
• The young, hunky, stud - male lead type (looks great, but can’t dance and can’t act... BUT he sure looks good); 
• The over-actor (everything’s too big from smile to dance steps); 
• The Diva (female who gets all the lead songs. She knows she’s good so she overdoes it until she’s no longer good); 
• The Diva wannabe (female still trying... but not quite good enough. Should probably be the Diva, until she becomes good enough to become not good); The Diva’s Competition (Good, but clearly never gets the chance with the Diva in the company); and 
• The Forgettable (is there, but you never really notice her…. WAIT… nope wasn’t her).

THE BAND:  Piano, Bass, Drums.  Your basics without any real talent amongst them, but hey, they CAN read music.

• Piano = “Musical Director” who CAN play, just not really well. 
• Drums = Oh? Was that a drum or the pounding of my foot trying to keep the band in tempo?  
• Bass = Seems like the bass players are always last minute stand in’s as evident by the Musical Director mouthing things like “KEY OF G” to him.  Nothing like a bass coming in on the wrong key… geez.

THE LIGHTING: Um... moving on….

THE SHOW: Picture this... one actor, center stage is the (usually too dim) spotlight announcing the era of the next few songs... the script goes something like this... and no, I’m not kidding:

“ And now we’d like to present songs from the golden age of theater. With hits from shows like Gypsy, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie and Call Me Madame.”

Blackout.  Song, Song, Song, Song... Blackout. Then:

“And now we’d like to present songs from Modern Age of theater. With hits from show like……”

Over and over and over again. It might as well have been a commercial on late night TV for the latest “songs from years gone by” album.

THE PERFORMANCE:  Now here’s my favorite part because this is where the true entertainment lies in my eyes. No, no, I won’t talk about flat or pitchy notes, or slightly off tempo dances, or even the perpetual swinging “scene of the ages” sign.  Let’s begin with believability.  A love song between a man and a woman (Love song from Ms. Saigon) that had the chemistry of oil and water. In fact, I’m not sure they touched each other once… no hand holding, not looking in each other’s eyes... just kind of singing AT each other. Odd, very odd.  Then there was the song between the Diva and the “Older Man” singing “I Loves You Porgy” from Porgy and Bess, um… huh? No, no, no. Didn’t work for me.  Song after song was a mismatch of characters singing at each other because they were told to, not because they wanted to.  Each one worse than the next in pitchy, flat-footed, drivel of someone’s attempt at an evening of entertainment.  Someone left a boa (yes, left over from “My Heart Belongs To Daddy” from Leave it to Me) on stage, and there it stayed through “Bali Ha’i” from South Pacific two or three songs later. 

The Finale... (which could not have come soon enough) was --- wait for it ---- “Take a Chance on Me” from Mamma Mia!  But that’s NOT the best part – no, the best part of the entire evening for me was not the missed lighting cues, simply flat performances, laughable script or swinging sign... NO! The evening appropriately culminated in an upbeat, sing along….WHEEEE… my favorite!! 

And to make my venture out to a night of live theater so well worth the $25 admission price, Mr. Studly, male, leading man type, performed "Take a Chance On Me"... the entire song, and dance, and sing along with his fly open exposing his blue briefs. 

A better night of theater was never had... well, maybe not