At Chapel Street, it's Hitchcock with a Twist

The Chapel Street Players have never backed down from putting on challenging shows, but THE 39 STEPS poses a special kind of challenge: Take a 1935 Alfred Hitchcock movie and recreate it on stage using just four actors and a few props. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s got well more than four characters. And multiple settings, including the outside of a moving train, the Scottish countryside, and the London Palladium. The sometimes mad dash to deliver almost every line in the film and change the set to fit the scenes is hilarious, and you end up with something that is part tribute, part parody, and very funny throughout. 

Taking on the roles are Tom Trietly, in the only single-character role as Richard Hannay,  a hapless Englishman who finds himself a murder suspect after inviting a doomed German spy to stay at his home for the night. She’s the first of three love interests for the “dashing, wavy-haired” Hannay, all played by Anna Keane, who delivers over-melodramatic (as intended) spy, sheltered country wife, and 1930s firecracker smoothly. All of the other characters are played by Bethany Miller, billed as “Clown 1,” and Andrew Dluhy, as “Clown 2.” Despite their minor-sounding billing, these two carry the show with a rapid-fire succession of characters, including vaudeville performers, police, spies, train conductors, and townsfolk of all kinds. Often within the same scene, with more than one of their characters present. There’s plenty of gender-bending and over-the-top accents, with Miller stealing most of her scenes.

Trietly is goofily charming as Hannay, presenting the protagonist as a sympathetic, relatively normal guy thrown into a world of thrills and intrigue. 

Few shows are as fast-paced and fun as THE 39 STEPS, and CSP’s four stars deliver the entertaining show it’s meant to be. If you don’t think of Hitchcock as fun, you’re in for surprise. You may never look at his (often darkly comic) classic films the same way again.

The 39 Steps runs from September 20 - 28, 2013. To purchase tickets, go to chapelstreetplayers.org/

This review was originally published in Stage Magazine.

Copeland Quartet opens new series at Church of the Holy City

It was a delight to see the Copeland String Quartet in their eleventh year – because you can feel that they have invested enough time to coordinate in that magic extra-sensory perception chamber groups get after years of performing together. 

 

They courageously chose three pieces by composers not known for their chamber catalogs and the results were mixed.  For me, the Copeland’s interpretation of Hugo Wolf’s wild and raucous Italian Serenade was too tame and too cautious.  Wolf was trying to make music representing a rebellious soldier wooing a damsel aggressively and I felt this damsel would have been underwhelmed.  And yet, the exploration of the unknown was intriguing.

 

The second piece was a lush, romantic short piece by Giacomo Puccini, Crisantemi, which he wrote for a funeral but which today would be the sort of movie theme patrons buy and take home and play again and again.  The beautiful melodic lines were played freely and with great expression by first violinist Eliezer Gutman and the group provided the support and countermelodies as if they were thinking the same thoughts and breathing the same rhythm. 

The third and last piece on the program was a surprising string quartet which Giuseppe Verdi wrote in Naples while waiting for the soprano in Aida to recover from an illness.  No surprise that this extremely operatic composer wrote a quartet that seemed like an opera.  Tom Jackson, second violin, got to lead the outer movements as if playing the alto role.  The first violin joined the duet and then the strings began to sound like the orchestral part!  The third movement gave cellist Mark Ward a chance to show off the singing high notes of the cello as his colleagues formed a pizzicato accompaniment.

The quartet played an encore which is on their third and latest CD, the Andante Espressivo  movement from Felix Mendelssohn’s Quartet in D Major, Opus 44, Nr. 1.  The group knows this piece well and played it with confidence, yet it seemed still fresh and alive. 

We are lucky to have a quartet with such longevity as the Copeland Quartet, like a fine wine, is definitely improving with age.

 

See www.copelandstringquartet.com

 

Delaware Theatre Company Scores a Touchdown with "Any Given Monday"

The Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) opened its 2013/14 Season with the black comedy Any Given Monday by Bruce Graham. Mr. Graham's four character play about an easy going, loving man (Lenny played by Kenny Morris) who's life is turned upside down when his wife (Risa played by Leslie Hendrix) of 24 years decides to leave him for a smooth-talking Casanova. However, the plot thickens when Lenny’s blue-collar best friend (Mickey played by Michael Mastro) tells Lenny how he has taken revenge on the Casanova on Lenny's behalf while watching the Monday night football game. During the game and the friends’ conversation, Lenny’s daughter (Sarah played by Lucy DeVito) decides to come home from school to not console her father, but to toughen him up and not become a "softy" when his wife decides to come back. 

The play, set on the outskirts of Philadelphia, could have easily been a run-of-the-mill story about a cheating partner, but Mr. Graham has written a complex, witty piece with twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat or bending over in laughter. I must admit I don't think I have ever laughed as hard at DTC as I did while watching this production.

Bud Martin expertly directed the production and the ensemble cast. Mr. Morris masterfully transforms from the sweet, easygoing high school teacher who’s obsessed with To Kill a Mockingbird in the first act to the take-charge alpha male in the second act. Ms. Hendrix is exquisite as the manipulative, spoiled wife. Her facial expressions and body language are priceless. Mr. Mastro has the task of delivering many of the shows funniest lines and he does it with great ease. He does an incredible job of bringing his dim-witted, but loveable character to life. Ms. DeVito rounds out the cast as the charming, but wise daughter who is obsessed with discussing life/death, religion and God. She does a fine job with her many humorous, philosophical monologues.

I have been seeing plays at DTC ever since I was a teenager in the late 80s and I’ve always been impressed with the sets for each production, and the set for this play doesn’t disappoint. Scenic Designer Dirk Durossette has created a multi-purpose stage that includes the inside of the family’s home and a portion of one side of the stage to serve for the scenes that take place outside of the home. His details are impeccable. Shortly after sitting down, my friend immediately pointed out the game of Sorry that was placed on a shelf in the family’s living room. It’s those details that I find add credibility to a play and makes it fun to explore the rest of the set!

Any Given Monday runs through September 22, at The Delaware Theatre Company. Visit www.delawaretheatre.org or call 302.594.1100. For additional information and