You Can't Take It With You
by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Directed by Ben Tyler
Hale Centre Theatre, Gilbert
(480) 497-1181
August 25th - October 7th, 2006
$16.00 - $18.00
Reviewed 8/26/06
Discount tickets may be available at

Hale Centre Theatre has brought in their go-to comedic director Ben Tyler to helm a great script in the form of Kaufman and Hart’s madcap classic You Can’t Take It With You. He has several familiar faces (Charlie LeSueur, Robert O’Mara, and Petey Swartz to name a few) with proven track records. Sandy Bishop and Corrin Dietlein have outdone themselves again with an amazing and nearly perfectly period costume design that plays on John Autore’s excellent set. I should be raving, right? And I would, save for a few minor problems, and one huge one. Most of the actors are fun, several are quite strong, but one is simply atrocious. Tyler’s normally spot-on direction is not as sharp as usual, with a lot of inexplicable blocking and some traffic problems of the type that he ordinarily aces. The actors seemed on the opening Saturday night to lag a bit in their pacing, sometimes so much so that each of their frantic act-enders became kind of mushy. The result is a production of a show I ordinarily adore that didn’t quite take me with it.

Most of the central cast works well together. LeSueur as Paul Sycamore and Jenny Mulcahy as his loony wife Penny are well cast and have many moments of strong matter-of-fact comedy. Joe Nuttal in the central role of the elder Sycamore is less strong than amiable, but never causes the show to sag and sometimes rises to his character’s pontificating. O’Mara and Whitney Bodine as the off-kilter younger generation Essie and Ed are charmingly nutsy. Supporting cast members including Swartz in the dual roles of drunken actress and down on her luck Duchess, Randy Hesson and Shari Watts as the flummoxed snobs Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, Jamie Israel as the interloping Mr. DePinna, and Mike Ives’ thoroughly hilarious Kolenkhov are bright spots. However, the central couple that drives the plot of the play is half a disaster.

Scott Duncan is a treat in the smitten role of Tony Kirby. He is sincere and scrubbed with all of his 30s mannerisms and charm down pat. However, he is asked to act opposite a black hole in the form of Kimberly Willey as Alice, the lone voice of reason in the eccentric brood. Willey isn’t just bad, she’s robotic. She rushes her delivery, offers a monotone vocalization, and moves stiffly. Unfortunately, it’s not horrifying in an “OMG, you’ve got to see this!” way, it’s just bad without the type of fun you get with over-the-top train wrecks. She delivers her lines in a drone, never seems to be listening to those around her for anything more than her cue, and hits her marks like she’s been set on rails. The best thing to say about this entire situation is that though the central plot is hers to fumble, the comedy still remains in the hands of the actors in the show.