Once in a Blue Moon, a local actor has a chance to reprise a leading role in two major Triangle productions during the same calendar year. This time, it is Greg Flowers, a consummate comedian cast by two local community-theater directors as itinerant actor George Hay in Ken Ludwig’s Moon Over Buffalo.
In April, Flowers literally stole the show in Garner in The Towne Players’ exuberant production of this wacky backstage comedy, set in 1953 on stage and behind the scenes at the Erlanger Theatre in Buffalo, NY -- a long, long, long way from Broadway. Flowers repeats -- and even improves upon -- his critically acclaimed comic characterization in the current Raleigh Little Theatre presentation of Moon Over Buffalo, staged with brio and wicked wit by long-time RLT artistic director Haskell Fitz-Simons, who underscores the sexual side of every double entendre and comic confrontation and, in so doing, transforms this backstage comedy into a door-slamming sex farce.
At one time, George Hay and his tightly wound wife, perpetual ingénue Charlotte Hay (Jenny Anglum), were rising stars of the American theater scene -- a sort of second-rate Lunt and Fontanne -- but now George is a ham’s ham onstage and a boozer and womanizer off stage, and Charlotte is mad as hell and she’s not going to take it anymore.
Greg Flowers, who sometimes careens around RLT scenic designer Roger Bridges’ nicely detailed set rubbery legged, like a rag doll, deepens and broadens his grasp on his meaty role; and Jenny Anglum proves the perfect foil. George has been a bad, bad boy -- he’s impregnated Eileen (Lois Triplett), the ditzy twenty-something blonde in his steadily shrinking traveling company -- and Anglum gets Charlotte Hay’s attitude just right: she loves the bum, and she’s fed up -- but if the rumored chance to co-star with George in a big-budget film directed by Frank Capra actually materializes, she’ll stand his shameless indiscretions just a little while longer -- but only for the sake of her career.
When their handsome entertainment lawyer, Richard (Jim Sullivan), rides in like Prince Charming on a white charger, Charlotte is ready to play Damsel in Distress and let him rescue her from her increasingly sordid domestic situation -- unless and until Capra calls. Meanwhile, the Hays’ prodigal daughter, Rosalind (Collette Rutherford), is back with Howard (Jaret Preston), her wide-eyed television-weatherman fiancé, in tow. Before she gave up acting to try to lead a more normal life, Roz used to be in love with Paul (Damien Juel Taylor), the Hays’ behind-the-scenes jack-of-all-trades.
Lois Triplett is cute as Eileen; Collette Rutherford is amusing as Roz; and Jaret Preston is entertaining as Howard, a fish out of water whose fanlike admiration for George and Charlotte Hay cannot possibly survive exposure to the real thing. Damien Juel Taylor plays Paul with gusto; and Joyce Weiser has a field day playing Ethel, Charlotte Hay’s hard-of-hearing mother -- and the company’s jill-of-all-trades.
If it were a motion picture, Haskell Fitz-Simons’ production of Moon Over Buffalo would be rated at least PG 13, because the veteran director underscores the show’s adult humor by transforming Cyrano’s rubber nose into a phallic symbol, and staging a wrestling match between George and Paul in a particularly suggestive way.
In addition to Roger Bridges’ imaginative set and costume designer Vicki Olson’s impressive assortment of 1950s fashions and characters’ costumes for Cyrano de Bergerac and Private Lives, the backstage contributions of lighting designer Rick Young, props mistress Amy Flynn, and stage manager Becca Easley also add extra luster to this stellar production of Moon Over Buffalo.
Raleigh Little Theatre presents Moon Over Buffalo Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 13-15 and 20-22, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 16 and 23, at 3 p.m. on the Cantey V. Sutton Stage, 301 Pogue St., Raleigh, North Carolina. $15-$21 ($12 students and seniors Thursday and Sunday). 919/821-3111 or click here. Note: All performances are wheelchair accessible, and assistive listening devices are available for all performances. Raleigh Little Theatre: http://www.raleighlittletheatre.org/buffalo.htm. Internet Broadway Database: http://www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=6216. Ken Ludwig: http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=7069 and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0525024/. Moon Over Broadway: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125412/ and http://www.artlic.com/films/moon.html.
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