Not many theatres around here have the balls to premiere a new script. A show that hasn’t already gone through a dozen previews and a New York run, so that the more basic imperfections are already ironed out? Heavens. Wheaton Drama has enough self confidence to try it and apparently their audience is buying into it, at least judging by the size of the house I saw last weekend. Good for them.
Creating ARThur is a comedy by Bill Ball (and “associate writers” Wendy Ball and Jodie Klassen, as designated in the bios. If they wrote part of the show, their names should be in the byline. Fair’s fair.) The plot concerns middle-aged brothers Alex and Andy Burns, whose older brother Arthur has just died. Alex, a schemer whose success rate makes Ralph Kramden look like Donald Trump, talks Andy into a hare-brained plan to have one of Arthur’s paintings hung in a museum. This involves scamming art auctioneers and museum owners into recognizing the late, great “De La Byrnes”. A phony biography is cooked up, deceptions are perpetrated, the brothers’ wives become suspicious and all we need is a belligerent cop snapping, “Why, I oughta…!”
Anyhoo – hilarity ensues. For the most part.
Annie Walker-Bright’s direction is focused and farcical. And, combined with set designer Don Dumper’s work, she does something innovative and brilliant – the opening scene switches between the brothers talking in one room and their wives talking in another. Instead of going the normal route and placing them at opposite ends of the stage, with lights going up and down as the occasion demands, there is a huge, blank painter’s canvas at centerstage. It’s on a pivot and is used as a revolving door. Husbands are talking, scene’s over, they pivot the canvas to reveal the wives while the husbands disappear. It makes for instant scene changes. Really nice work. Walker-Bright is also adept at moving a large amount of people (for a non-musical) in the background without having them be either distracting or static.
Dennis Brown (as Alex) and Chris Williams (Andy) work their asses off to put the material over. Both men are very funny and, when the material is up to their level, as in a mini “Who’s on First” about which phony name Andy is to use that day, they nail it. They have nice chemistry together.
Susan Carr (Alex’s wife Lorraine) and Dawn Herbst (Andy’s wife Esther) have similar chemistry and talent. They are enormously likable and funny; the script needed to give them more than exposition and suspicion.
One problem with the script is that this is a situation comedy that wants to be a farce. I mention this now because there are only two truly farcical characters in the show, which points up the sitcomicality (Hooray! New word!) of the rest of the show. Angelicque Cate as a raucous, chatty, anyhooing waitress who turns up EVERYWHERE, steals Act One. Act Two is stolen by Steven Merkel as a screaming queen (Hooray! Non-PC comedy!) art salesman. My biggest suggestion for the script is to have them come through the last scene as a couple. Both performances were broad and bigger than life – thank god.
The rest of the ensemble was extremely good – valid characters when necessary and unobtrusive in the background for crowd scenes.
On the whole, a funny show, due at this point more to the cast and direction than to the script. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Since, as screenwriter William Goldman says, everybody thinks they can improve scripts, there’s no reason for me to be any different. So; to the playwright(s):
The script could lose twenty minutes without any perceptible damage. It is one-third action and two-thirds talking about what they’re going to do. The chatter goes on FOREVER. A scene between the wives goes on and on and on making the same point – their husbands are acting weird. Instead of being straight-women – long-suffering sitcom wives – it would have been far more interesting to see them with actual personalities & quirks of their own. They are standard-issue “What are those goofballs up to?” characters whose dialogue is there just to give them equal stage time rather than something interesting to do with it. Carr and Herbst were obviously capable of much more than they were given.
As for Andy and Alex – both characters are too frantic. For me, it would have been more of a contrast to have Alex be insanely, groundlessly confident. The best scheming teams (Zero Mostel & Gene Wilder in The Producers, Peter Falk & Alan Arkin in The In-Laws, Bing Crosby & Bob Hope in the Road movies) have a friendly, confident sheepdog leading a terrified sheep into a saloon full of wolves. Having both characters sputter doesn’t work.
Start ruthlessly attacking your own logic, or wait for reviewers to do so. Banks do NOT take as long to process checks as they did twenty years ago. Why are NONE of the art dealers wondering why there is no mention of the famous De La Byrnes anywhere on the internet? I could Google information like that in two minutes – why wouldn’t they? Why don’t the gallery salespeople fight like hell when a sale is threatened in that very, very, very long scene in Act Two? Until the art dealers and wives show up, there’s no comedic escalation.
Lastly, you need to think visually. For a show about painting, 70% of this is a radio show. Place scenes in locations where the characters have to DO something while they talk. The director did a fabulous job fleshing it out; give her some help.
But away from the playwright and back to the casual review reader: is it worth it to buy a ticket? Yes. The cast is fabulous, some of the performances are gems and there are enough laughs. If you’re tired of sitting through Godspell (not that I ever would) and Steel Magnolias, get out and support the idea of trying new shows. Hooray, Wheaton Drama! Anyhoo...
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