Syracuse Post Standard

"Talent Company Spoofs Hitchcock Genre"

Published: Saturday, April 09, 2011, 12:21 PM     Updated: Saturday, April 09, 2011, 12:30 PM

The Talent Company’s latest production, “Wrong Window!” by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore, and directed by Christine Lightcap, is a whacky, tongue-in-cheek send-up of films by Alfred Hitchcock.

The single, stationary set is an apartment in a high-rise, New York City building with a view out large windows into the next apartment. The action, which takes place sometimes in one apartment, and often, simultaneously, in both apartments, is brought toward the audience by the ingenious, mirror-image reversal of decor, depending on where the central scene is located. It’s undoubtedly one of the finer, and most workable sets seen lately in any local theater.

Director Lightcap must have given a wide berth to these seasoned performers to display an abundance of physical comedy because this cast really pours it on. Of course, this type of play, where murder and mayhem are diluted by comic overtones and frenetic physical movement, begs for exaggeration and over-the-top behaviors. This piece has plenty of those.

Marnie (Get it, Hitch fans?) Elbies (Colleen Wager) and Jeff Elbies (Josh Taylor) are a recently re-united couple who spend a lot of time looking out their windows with binoculars a la James Stewart in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”. Like Stewart’s character, they think they’ve witnessed a crime in the next apartment. Wager’s exaggerations of emotion are nicely balanced by Taylor’s cool control, at least in the beginning.

Brought into the intrigue are their friends and confidantes, Robbie (Jon Wilson) and Midge (Korrie Strodel). Much of the smart comedy emanates from these two characters through Strodel’s verbal humor and Wilson’s comic physicality and well-timed quips.

They all believe that they have witnessed their neighbor, Thor Larswald (Shawn Forster), kill his wife, Lila (Adrienne Foster) because she had a reputation for cheating on him. Further complications are brought to bear on the situation when Loomis (David Minikhiem), the building handyman, arrives and gives more credence to their suspicions. Minikhiem takes full advantage of Loomis’ rather whippy personality, and plays it out in grand fashion. His over-the-top characterization in several appearances are comic high points in the piece.

Forster plays the chief suspect to the hilt, replete with sleeveless tee shirt, gravelly voice, and quick, determined movements. Len Bilotti’s Detective Doyle Thomas, sharply-dressed and nicely coiffed, is all business as the agitated investigator direct from central casting. Barry Nicholas plays the silent, uniformed officer accompanying Thomas at the murder scene.

With snappy dialogue peppered with Hitchcock film titles, allusions and references (there are over twenty), plus laughs aplenty, “Wrong Window” is a right choice for an evening’s entertainment.

http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/article-4866-dial-m-for-mirth.html

Talent Company Does "The Time Warp" Again

Published: Friday, October 22, 2010, 12:07 PM    

by  Tony Curulla   Syracuse Post Standard

From its striking opening number, “Science Fiction”, by “Lips” and Company, to that number’s reprise in the final scene, The Talent Company’s 2010 edition of “The Rocky Horror Show” is a near-two hours of raw and raucous entertainment. Originally a 1973 British stage show with book, lyrics, and music by Richard O’Brien, most familiar to a broader audience is the 1975 film version, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” starring Tim Curry in the lead role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter and O’Brien as Riff-Raff, his butler/”slave”.

For the uninitiated, perhaps a viewing of the film before seeing the stage show might allow one to better appreciate and allow more access to the live version. There probably isn’t any stage show or film that has reached the apex of “cult status” the way “Rocky Horror” has. From audience members dressing like the characters, to lines of dialogue and commentary hurled forth from the seats, as well as key “props” thrown at the stage or screen, each performance of the show or showing of the film turns into a fresh “happening”. Talent Company’s current version is no exception.

In the experienced and able directorial hands of T.C.’s Christine Lightcap (she has directed the show several times), this “newest” version is a winner on several fronts. First off is the casting of John Didonna in the lead role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a role he originated with the Talent Company some 25 years ago. Didonna not only has the “look” for the role, but also the voice and physical endurance to carry it off, and he does it proud, strutting about thestage with the required command.

Both Marianna Ranieri (Magenta) and Sara Weiler (Columbia) are especially convincing in their respective roles as a maid with an attitude and a singer/dancer who has several nice turns on her feet. Dan Bostick’s Riff-Raff, Magenta’s “brother” and house butler (think Marty Feldman’s Igor from Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” on steroids!) is an excellent approximation of O’Brien’s original role.

The two innocents who inadvertently end up “over at the Frankenstein place” are played by Rob Fonda (Brad Majors) and Korrie Strodel (Janet Weiss). Nerdish Brad, and Janet, the all-American virgin from Ohio, are transformed in several ways when they make the mistake of looking for a telephone after getting a flat tire. And, of course, it just happens to be a “dark and rainy night”. Both exude hapless, unadulterated caricatures , making them perfect targets for the goings-on to befall them that night.

Other actors turning in spot-on performances are Michael Groesbeck (Rocky), the automaton-like creation of Frank-N-Furter, Bill Ali (Eddie), whose rousing dance number, “Hot Patootie” is prefaced with motorcycle exhaust before he unmysteriously disappears, and Gennaro Parlato (Dr. Scott) whose famous entrance is bombarded with rolls of toilet paper (Scott—get it?). Tim Fox (The Narrator), all business and announcer-like, perched omnisciently above stage left, keeps us abreast of the travesties below.

Jeanette Reyner’s costuming is first-class for visuals, and Steve Beebe’s sets seem purposefully “cheesy”, hearkening back to those of early sci-fi flicks.

Great ensemble singing and dancing by some fifteen “Transylvanians”, accompanied by a six-piece crackerjack orchestra that pumps out the hot, unforgettable score, completes this memorable theater experience.

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Syracuse New Times - James MacKillop

Channel 9 News

http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story/Audience-gets-involved-at-Rocky-Horror/xxCyU4M3Q0G1OTTds9IHXw.cspx

The Producers

By James MacKillop

While audiences were distracted by momentous events in the news, few seem to have noticed the shrinkage of one of our most venerable institutions. The community-based stage musical, which has always dominated contention at the Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) Awards, has been hard to find. Yet Chris Lightcap’s Talent Company, officially not a community-theater outfit, is still showing the flag.

Its madcap mounting of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, now at the New York State Fairgrounds’ New Times Theater, is not just the biggest game in town, it’s the only musical outside the college and touring companies between August and December. To get this show on the boards there’s been a lot of kissing and making up and burying of hatchets, so that elements of four rival companies contribute to what we see. If Lightcap can get The Producers up and running, President Obama can expect to start receiving bouquets from Rush Limbaugh.

Given that The Producers is the biggest Broadway musical of the decade and this is the first Syracuse production of it, audiences enter the theater well-prepared for what they’re going to see. In part that’s because Brooks’ original movie version (1968) has been kicking around for 40 years, and we’re already familiar with the outrageous premise and many of the gags. The unexpected part of the show is that although it was written for the screen, with lots of hard-to-mount scenes like the episode in the pigeon roost, it now feels better-suited for the spontaneity and split-second timing of live theater. Despite Brooks’ long career in television and movies, his rooting is in now-extinct forms of vaudeville and burlesque. Little wonder that the dismal Nathan Lane-Matthew Broderick film version (2005) was such a failure. Anyone with a still-active funny bone would rather see the Talent Company edition.

Producer Lightcap and director Dan Tursi made important decisions up front for this blowout show of the season. Following Brooks’ dictum, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” when the Little Old Ladies’ chorus comes out for their big number, “Along Came Bialy,” they’re leaning on four-legged aluminum walkers. In the courtroom scene the stenographer types on a genuine recorder. And note Jeanette Reyner’s costumes for the showstopping “Springtime for Hitler.” The mannequin’s heads sport those celebrations of Germanic culture: the beer stein, the pretzel and the sausage.

Taking the leads are a reliable veteran and a green newcomer. Joe Spado puts his own spin on the senior role of Max Bialystock, shaking off any allusions to Zero Mostel or Nathan Lane. Along with enjoying a better singing voice than either Mostel or Lane, and flawless timing for the endless gags, Spado limns Max with an unexpected pathos, revealing a vulnerable center under the brash exterior. Despite his well-deserved SALT Award for The Full Monty he’s never been better.

Contrasting as a beetle-browed accountant Leopold Bloom, Max’s opposite number, is Ryan Boyle, who offstage is a cantor, soloist and choir section leader at DeWitt’s Holy Cross Church. People who remember only the 1968 movie are surprised that the Bloom of the musical has developed into a more complex character. Boyle’s Leo is more neurotic than the Gene Wilder character, but also more ambitious, as seen in his big first-act number, “I Wanna Be a Producer.” In the second act Boyle’s Leo morphs into an unexpectedly romantic character and then even more of a cutthroat than his mentor Max. The newcomer glides over this arc with confidence.

Director Tursi cast himself as the self-obsessed director Roger DeBris whom Max and Leo hire to destroy what they hope will be the flop musical Springtime for Hitler. With him is Tursi’s longtime colleague from the Rarely Done company, Jimmy Wachter, as DeBris’ servant and sidekick Carman Ghia. In the past 10 years the American theater has not come up with two more over-the-top roles, including the deranged family members of Tracey Letts’ August Osage County. Wachter’s Carman is more physical, with the exaggerated flourishes of a male Isadora Duncan. His hands get laughs. Dark-browed and thundering, Tursi’s DeBris has some of the most bizarre lines in the show. He says of Leo’s personal fragrance, “I’d love to bottle you up and shove you into my armpits every morning.”

Breaking way, way out of type as buxom, blonde Ulla is comely Katie Lemos, a veteran opera performer last seen locally as the plaintive romantic lead in Appleseed Production’s The Spitfire Grill, directed by her mother Sharee Lemos. This is a tougher role than remembered, as Ulla has some of the most athletic dance numbers, including the splits, and her facility with gags has to be equal to the guys. A brunette offstage and a bit shorter than other Ullas, Lemos holds some characterization in reserve for plot twists in the second act. Maybe it takes a Scottish-Portuguese girl to make a funny Swede.

In a show with this much energy and noise, no one is going to be a scene-stealer, but David Witanowski exceeds expectations as the nutcase Nazi Franz Liebkind, playwright of the world’s worst script. Witanowski, artistic director and eponym of the Wit’s End Players company, often casts himself in unrewarding character roles. Liebkind has some of the worst lines, and he’s the scariest character in The Producers. Rising to the challenge, Witanowski strikes sparks where every previous player has fallen flat. Funny what good timing can do to a line like, “ . . . you know who.”

In a second instance of casting modesty, Talent Company producer Chris Lightcap shows up as the physically needy senior-citizen backer of Max’s shows, Hold Me-Touch Me. Under her gray curls and polka-dot granny dress, Hold Me craves to play intimate games like, “The Virgin Milkmaid and the Well-Hung Stable Boy.” Lightcap’s Hold Me pops up again in the middle of a furtive love scene, and as a jury member in the courtroom scene.

Choreographer Michael Groesbeck delivers managed chaos when DeBris takes over the lead in “Springtime” and surprises with numbers neglected in other productions, like “Prisoners of Love” in the second act. Nadine Cole’s musical direction makes Brooks’ score sound like music of a better composer. Cindy Shippers’ lighting and Tony Vadala’s sound design enhance Stephen Beebe’s light-footed set. And director Tursi plucks laughs from at least a dozen supporting players in multiple roles, starting with Dorothy Lennon as an obtrusive bag lady, Peter Irwin and Stephond Brunson.

When Mel Brooks rewrote The Producers in 2001 he wanted a knock-your-eyes-out show that would bring people to Broadway and could not be replicated in the provinces. The Talent Company challenges that notion. Once again the phrase for this month is, “Yes we can.”