If you're in the mood to watch blue hairs squirm, buy a seat for the Scottsdale Community Players' latest, Terrence McNally's gay take on classic farce and opera, The Ritz. Despite advertising that stresses the location of the play (a gay bathhouse), the Saturday night audience sat stony-faced through the silly first act until intermission, when 30-to-40% of the season ticket holders made a mad dash for the exits. Was it the subject matter that drove them away? Perhaps it was the scantily dressed pretty boys fawning over and chasing each other. Maybe they just thought that the show was badly presented. It was probably a little of all of these. And unfortunately, they were more than a little justified to hightail it out of the auditorium. No, the subject matter isn't that bad--Will & Grace goes there often enough. The pretty boys are hardly more than cutely frolicking. Ultimately, though, Director Robert L. Harper allows this production to somehow overplay camp, wallowing in it until the excesses become the most amusing part of the show.
Proclo has been marked for death by his father-in-law, an underworld figure, on his deathbed. His brother-in-law, Carmine, chases him to a gay bathhouse in Greenwich Village. Here, Proclo hides among chubby-chasers, grand queens, and boys in drag, trying to lay low, but somehow becoming the center of every situation. This is McNally's attempt at a classic farce, with little dashes of Italian comic opera and modern-day gay flamboyance thrown in. Imagine A Flea In Her Ear meeting Torch Song Trilogy, and you get the idea.
Mr. Harper has taken this silly show, and gone for broke, directing it more like musical comedy than a play. He has pushed the show wholeheartedly into the farcical aspect, and mixed in campiness to a cloying effect. Of course, there's little else he can do. Just like a farce, there's no touchstone of reality: characters spend long periods of time talking to the audience, situations inexplicably coalesce for effect, and everyone is linked to one another in as unbelievable a way as possible. Mr. Harper has also regretfully added a tone-setting pre-show bit that makes unnecessary a fair amount of the scripts exposition, though it still unfortunately remained. The point of not seeing the menacing Carmine and others was to build up the moments when they did appear, but this bit has worked against itself on many levels.
The performances need to be highly stylized, and not that many of the actors seemed versed in its requirements. Farce requires pinpoint precision. Bruce Halperin and Ross Collins are broader and more frenetic than their main characters should be. The clowns of musical comedy are not the same as those of farce. More balance and accuracy is necessary in farce, and few in the cast are able to do this. The campy aspects of the show, though, come through better, as exemplified by John Haubner and Kimberlee Hart. Mr. Haubner is the prototype of queendom, swishing for success, while Ms. Hart, despite being forced to read her lines like Ricky Riccardo, is energetic and all over the stage. Notable, too, is the only semblance of sanity, Karen Binder, who can segue easily between farce, camp, and reality in an amusing way.
T. John Weltzien has recreated the bathhouse in the style of classic farce, with plenty of doors and stairs. He has also come up with a clever way of allowing access to the rooms within, though the set seems to be a little sloppier than usual, with misaligned wallpaper and uneven joints. Timothy C. Slope's costumes (made much easier, I imagine, from the preponderance of towels as a required covering) are well handled, as are Michael J. Eddy's lighting and Dave Temby's sound design.
I don't particularly like McNally's over-the-top script, the thin, farcical situations, or a lot of the presentations of the poor actors who are required to act silly for silliness sake, but I found I was laughing despite myself. If you're even the slightest bit touchy or homophobic, don't bother. If excessive camp isn't your style, steer clear. If, though, you enjoy silly boys in towels, cheap bathhouse jokes, and lots of doors slamming, check into The Ritz.
Production Details:
The Ritz by Terrence McNally
Scottsdale Community Players
Stagebrush Theatre, Scottsdale
(480) 990-7405
October 27th - November 12th, 2000