mspt@goldfishpublishers.com
Reviewed 1/3/04
I hate not liking a new company’s show. I especially don’t like hating two in a row. However, after two quick successes, the next two shows I’ve seen at Hale Centre Theatre (I did not attend their Christmas Carol) have left me cold. What undercut See How They Run was mediocre acting and direction supporting a weak script. So it is with their current production of F. Hugh Herbert’s weightless Kiss and Tell. I understand that this is supposed to be light comedy for a family theatre, but this script is an example of why all of the angry young playwrights of the ‘50s and ‘60s rebelled in the first place, and simple comedies fled to the small screen. The charm of a sitcom in live theatre is lost on me, and I’m sure on many of those dozen or so who left at intermission during the Saturday matinee. However light this is, though, inconsistent and presentational acting and ill-considered direction only crushes an already wafer-thin script.
Also set in WWII, though this time in America, the plot involves a family with a precocious daughter, Corliss, and a son who is a Lieutenant in the army, Lenny. Through some bad choices and silly contrivances, Corliss and her best friend Mildred are forbidden to see each other, though Mildred and Lenny are sweethearts. Toss in parental squabbles, mistaken placement of pregnancies, a little brat who is ten going on thirty five, and a deus ex machina of an Uncle, and you’ve got about twenty six minutes of plot drawn out into nearly two hours.
Kindra Steenerson helms this shipwreck. I can’t rightly blame her for all of her bad casting choices, because you take what you’re given, but it’s frightfully obvious that she has not learned the subtleties of directing for theater-in-the-round. The impressive blocking done on Beau Jest and The Man with the Pointed Toes highlights all of the problems of Steenerson’s hyperactive work. She does not trust her actors to sit with their backs to one side of the audience for too long, which results in what appears to be an ADD-addled community. Unjustified switches from chair to chair and movements to circle speaking parties allow everyone to be seen, and no one to be believed.
While Steenerson is not to be completely blamed for casting choices, the finger points to her for inconsistencies in character performance. Tiffany Clark’s screechy and overt Corliss is in direct conflict with Kandyce Hughes and Tom Koelbel’s earnest and realistic presentation of her parents. Julia T. Enescu and Kasey Munns are cute as Mildred and Lenny, but Rebecca Rodgers-Hansen is nothing but a bulldozer in a red wig as Mildred’s mother. Lorin W. Hansen can barely recite, let alone remember his lines, yet he has the wise-kid attitude of young Raymond down, while Dallyn Steenerson’s Dexter, Corliss’ browbeaten suitor, is at about the level I think everyone should have been playing. The elder Steenerson does nothing textually to hide the shameful truth of Judy Dillon’s originally African American maid Louise, especially in Koelbel’s character’s comments, though Dillon does as good as she can with the racially offensive role.
The design element is solid. The set is consistently period, as are Sandy Dietlein’s excellent costumes and props. Kudos go to Kandyce Hughes for her excellent swing choreography during the curtain call. In fact, this dancing by the collected cast is far more entertaining than the play that it follows.
Many will say that my predisposition to being anti-fluff may color my judgment, but don’t just take it from me. While leaving, the couple in front of me kept referring to their reactions to the play and it’s participants as “Eh.” The large number of empty seats to begin the second act also confirms my suspicions. Little things like actual character, a semblance of a plot, and consistent acting and direction are important, even in a family theatre that strives to be something more than community level. I am a huge fan of their next presentation, My Fair Lady, and am anxious to see how such a large show can be done in a theatre-in-the-round setting. In the very least, I know the script will be top notch the next time I head out to Gilbert.