Let me start off by saying that Tom Leveen's Is What It Is Theatre has gained attention locally as the gutsy spitfire little company that is striving to fill the voids of smaller and alternative victim companies such as Planet Earth, In Mixed Company, and The Ensemble Theatre. While Mr. Leveen is not offering cutting edge fare, he is trying to bring quality theatre together on a shoestring, and for that I applaud him. IWIIT's past few seasons have featured some surprises, but their current offering, John Patrick's chestnut The Curious Savage, is a misstep of aspiration. It's a case of trying to do something for effect when playing it straight would have been the better choice. The result is difficult to sit through, despite two strong performances.

Mrs. Ethel P. Savage is being institutionalized because she's showing signs of foolishness with her fortune. Her greedy stepchildren are putting her into The Cloisters so that they can regain control of the money. In this wacky hospital, she befriends five inmates: motherly Florence; flighty Fairy May; shy and tortured Jeffrey; statistics victim Hannibal; and the nearly catatonic Mrs. Paddy. When it is discovered that Mrs. Savage has in fact liquidated her assets into bonds and hidden them, the battle is on between the "crazy" inmates and the "sane" spoiled children, while moderated by Dr. Emmett and her assistant Miss Willie. While the original production in 1950 ran only 31 performances and featured stage legend Lillian Gish, it became a staple of the community and education theatre canon through the 70s. The script died an ignominious death around the time of disco, rarely seen since the Me Generation gave way to Yuppies. The show is cute, though, when done in a way that mellows the heavy-handed message.

Mr. Leveen has not done this. In fact, the production is directed in a presentational way reminiscent to the style reserved for such plays as Madwoman of Chaillot. The result is tongue-in-cheek and over-the-top, which only makes the message that much harder to avoid. This production tries too hard, from the tightly stylized performances to the obvious music choices. The comedy is served up with the subtlety of an Agassi backhand, while the pacing of the show is sabotaged by its incessantly line-searching lead, Alice Bjorkland. Mr. Leveen's stage pictures are unimaginative, depending on a lot of people standing in straight lines and angled positions, while the actors movements are timed to fall precisely on line breaks, making the piece feel a little like watching Disney automatons in action.

It's sad when the strongest performance of this show is that of the woman playing the part of the catatonic Mrs. Paddy. Drew Riley invests herself completely in her difficult role, and never once breaks character, even during the long stretches when she's off to the side and out of the spotlight. Her difficult monologues are brilliantly spewed, and her character arc is impeccably played. Entertaining is Tricia Arnseth as the flighty Fairy May. Textually, she is supposed to be a plain girl fighting her looks by becoming an in-your-face sprite, but Ms. Arnseth is just too cute, and this fact is lost on the audience. She does a very good job of being as annoyingly dear as her name implies.

After these two performances, the remainder is undercut either by Mr. Leveen's stylistic choice, such as the unsubtle way Jim Ferry, Allison Hilston, and Jason Carney oversell their evilness as the spoiled kids, or by limited acting skills, as in Chris McGuire's lack of understanding of the timidity of the role of Jeffrey, or the uninspired performance of Ms. Bjorkland. In looks and attitude, Ms. Bjorkland appears a good choice for the role of Ethel, though she seems lost in the script, and sometimes the audience can see her flipping and scanning pages in her mind to find her place. The result is an evening that has the pacing of a first lesson on a stick shift. She also has the bad habit of sometimes dropping the power of her voice, which makes it difficult to hear her in more somber moments.

Ms. Arnseth and Michael Peck's set does not work with the production, especially the always-sunny barred window which goes against many textual allusions. Jeff Scruggs' lighting design and Peggy Carney's sound design are better.

I regret giving this company a bad review. They mean well, but this production is beyond charity. Let's hope that their next production, which is ambitiously their first musical, the rarely produced Working, sets them back on the right track.

Production Details:
The Curious Savage by John Patrick
Is What It Is Theatre
Studio One Performing Arts Center, Phoenix (For a map to location, click this link)
(480) 994-9495
June 14th - 29th, 2002

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