Max and Benjie are conjoined twins. Max is straight. Benjie is gay. The two share a penis. What could go right? Not a lot, as it turns out. Jay Bernzweig’s televisual comedy "Made in Heaven" is notable more for the performances of thesps Alex Anfanger (Benjie) and Matthew Bondy (his paramour, Gilbert) than it is for its contribution to dramatic literature. Helmer Andrew Shaifer wrings a lot of laughs from the play’s reheated "Will and Grace"-style gags, but ultimately, Bernzweig’s biggest innovation is his surprisingly bleak denouement, which totally annuls the rest of the mildly entertaining enterprise.

"Made in Heaven" opens with Max on the cusp of proposing marriage to the pair’s mutual girlfriend, Jessica (Maia Madison), and Benjie on the cusp of coming out to his brother, thus presenting us with two real strains on the play’s credibility. First, is it possible to share major organs with a person and stay totally oblivious to his sexual orientation? Second, who is going to marry these three? The boys are clearly individuals (incredibly so, in fact, with Max tall and dark and Benjie slight and blond), so isn’t this bigamy? Asking either question probably misses the point, which is that Jessica is both desperate and impressively considerate — as Groucho Marx answered it, "Yes, it’s big of me, too. It’ll be big of all of us!"

Still, this isn’t the only time "Made in Heaven" asks us to take a leap of faith. When Jessica and Max decide to try to find someone for Benjie, they miraculously settle on a hustler, Gilbert, who just happens to be Jessica’s ex-husband, a former molecular biologist. What’s surprising is that once this little love triangle (or square, or whatever) is established, Bernzweig settles down to developing his characters along realistic lines, which of course proves that none of them is actually suited to the task of living with any other, except for the twins.

To some extent, that’s gratifying. It’s true that almost no one immediately converts from drugged-out prostitute to marriageable partner, and it’s also interesting to see the depths of Jessica’s self-loathing (which may or may not have fueled the relationship with Max and Benjie in the first place). But it’s also a serious break with the rest of the play; if we can believe in fraternal conjoined twins, can’t we believe in a happy ending?

Shaifer displays some real talent here: He manages to keep his actors from upstaging each other, but he never clamps them down so tightly that they don’t have room to breathe. Anfanger, for example, has a half-dozen amusing little moments to himself in which he remembers some of the men he’s lusted after. And Bondy’s nicely exaggerated overconfidence does a lot to keep us interested in a character who’s much less than just another pretty face.

Kevin Thomas Collins has a slightly thankless role as Max, literally the straight man, but he makes the most of it, especially when Benjie has to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and can’t wake him up. Madison, in particular, has a gift for delivering a line so well you don’t notice it’s not funny. To be fair, there’s some funny stuff here, and the skill required for two actors to essentially run a three-legged race for an hour and a half is certainly considerable, but it’s hard for even the best production to recommend a play that simply aspires to competence 90% of the time.

Set, Lex Liang; costumes, Jeffrey Wallach; lighting, Kia Rogers; production stage manager, Fran Rubenstein. Opened Nov. 2, 2009. Reviewed Oct. 31. Running time: 1 HOUR, 30 MIN.

(St. James Theater; 1,701 seats; $120 top)

By DAVID ROONEY (Variety)

‘Finian’s Rainbow’

A David Richenthal, Jack Viertel, Alan D. Marks, Michael Speyer, Bernard Abrams, David M. Milch, Stephen Moore, Debbie Bisno/Myla Lerner, Jujamcyn Theaters presentation, in association with Melly Garcia, Jamie Deroy, Jon Bierman, Richard Driehaus, Kevin Spirtas, Jay Binder, Stage Ventures 2009 Limited Partnership, of a musical in two acts with music by Burton Lane, lyrics by Yip Harburg, book by Harburg and Fred Saidy. Book adaptation, Arthur Perlman; based on the New York City Center Encores! presentation, adapted by David Ives. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle. Music supervision and vocal arrangements, Rob Berman.
Finian McLonergan – Jim Norton
Sharon McLonergan – Kate Baldwin
Woody Mahoney – Cheyenne Jackson
Bill Rawkins – Chuck Cooper
Og – Christopher Fitzgerald
Sunny – Guy Davis
Susan Mahoney – Alina Faye
Sheriff – Brian Reddy
Sen. Rawkins – David Schramm
Dottie – Terri White
Buzz Collins – William Youmans

What better time for a show that makes gentle mockery of that incurable habit of building the illusion of wealth on nothing more than a dream and a credit line, while also offering the rose-tinted consolation that such folly will turn out fine in the end? But it’s not so much the uncanny appropriateness of its pixified fairy tale as the enveloping warmth of Burton Lane’s melodies and the spry wit of Yip Harburg’s lyrics that make “Finian’s Rainbow” such an infectious charmer. Rather than try to get around the 1947 musical’s daffy story by hammering the social satire, director-choreographer Warren Carlyle and his winning cast simply embrace its quaint idiosyncrasies.

An expanded version of the Encores! concert staging from March, the production pretty much banishes concerns about the over-complicated plotting and reform-minded preachiness of Harburg and Fred Saidy’s book, skillfully adapted by Harburg archivist Arthur Perlman. From the moment music director Rob Berman raises his lighter-than-air baton on the show’s soaring overture, blissful surrender is the only option.

A patchwork scrim reveals John Lee Beatty’s Technicolor-hued picture-book set depicting a verdant valley in the mythical state of Missitucky, where rascally Irishman Finian McLonergan (Jim Norton) arrives with daughter Sharon (Kate Baldwin). Armed with a pot of gold “borrowed” from leprechaun Og (Christopher Fitzgerald), Finian’s plan is to bury the loot in the shadow of Fort Knox, then watch it multiply.

The McLonergans bail out a community of poor sharecroppers whose land is threatened by the filibustering machinations of bigoted Sen. Rawkins (David Schramm). Sharon falls instantly in love with local boy Woody (Cheyenne Jackson) and inadvertently turns the white senator black (with Chuck Cooper stepping into the role) via one of the pot of gold’s three wishes. Meanwhile, deprived of his magic, Og attempts to locate the treasure and halt his gradual transformation to human form.

If all this sounds like a crock of pure escapist whimsy, well, it is. But the humor is surprisingly durable, while the jokes about race relations, suspect banking practices, corrupt politics and rampant consumer lust still hit the target. Intermission is bookended by matching anthems to our acquisitive culture, with “That Great ‘Come-and-Get-It’ Day” exhorting the Rainbow Valley residents to buy now, pay later, while “When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich” illustrates the boost in status a little shopping can bring.

Much of the credit for the revival’s appeal goes to astute casting. Norton made a memorably sly and sozzled Dubliner in “The Seafarer” two seasons back, and he delivers a more benign version of that twinkly stereotype here, dignifying it with soulfulness, nimble physicality and a gentle comic touch.

Jackson’s supple voice and relaxed leading-man confidence are a smooth fit for Woody, while Baldwin, mostly seen on Broadway up to now in secondary roles or replacement casts, is a revelation. A Maureen O’Hara-type beauty with an agreeably feisty manner and a crystal-clear soprano, she makes gorgeous work of her wistful solo “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” and sings gloriously with Jackson and other cast members on such standards as “Old Devil Moon” and “Look to the Rainbow.”

Fitzgerald’s vaudevillian musical comedy skills are put to excellent use as the Cole Porter-quoting Og, his kelly-green suit steadily shrinking as his mortality takes hold. He also socks across the hilarious “When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love,” an unapologetic confession of romantic opportunism that exemplifies Harburg’s facility for clever rhymes: “Ev’ry femme that flutters by me/Is a flame that must be fanned/When I can’t fondle the hand I’m fond of/I fondle the hand at hand.”

Terri White scores big in the showstopper “Necessity,” a fired-up spiritual about the burdens of work. Schramm makes Rawkins an amusing blowhard (”The festering tides of radicalism are upon us!”), while Cooper is a fine physical match as his black doppelganger, turning on some Cab Calloway showmanship in the rousing quartet number, “The Begat.” Guy Davis blows sweet harmonica on “Dance of the Golden Crock,” while Alina Faye, as Woody’s mute sister, Susan, responds in lissome ballet to his every phrase.

With a nod to the exhilarating moves of original choreographer Michael Kidd, Carlyle blends classical with Celtic with hoedown to buoyant effect. That eclecticism perfectly complements the textural richness of the music, which folds together gospel, blues, traditional folk strains, mellow jazz and show tunes into one of Broadway’s most consistently melodious scores, heard here in Robert Russell Bennett and Don Walker’s lush original orchestrations.

Scott Lehrer’s crisp sound design, Toni-Leslie James’ characterful costumes and Ken Billington’s sugar-kissed lighting complete the enchanting package.

Sets, John Lee Beatty; costumes, Toni-Leslie James; lighting, Ken Billington; sound, Scott Lehrer; hair, wigs and makeup, Wendy Parson; original orchestrations, Robert Russell Bennett, Don Walker; music coordination, Seymour Red Press; technical supervision, Hudson Theatrical Associates; associate choreographer, Parker Esse; associate producers, Andrew Hartman, Gail Lawrence; executive producer, Nicole Kastrinos; production stage manager, Tripp Phillips. Opened Oct. 29, 2009. Reviewed Oct. 27. Running time: 2 HOURS, 15 MIN.

With: Aaron Bantum, Tanya Birl, Christopher Borger, Meggie Cansler, Bernard Dotson, Leslie Donna Flesner, Sara Jean Ford, Taylor Frey, Lisa Gajda, Kearran Giovanni, Tim Hartman, Laren Lim Jackson, Tyrick Wiltez Jones, Grasan Kingsberry, Kevin Ligon, Monica L. Patton, Joe Aaron Reid, Devin Richards, Steve Schepis, Rashidra Scott, Brian Sears, Paige Simunovich, James Stovall, Elisa Van Dunne.

Written by James MacKillop (Syracuse New Times)

Monster Mashed

Appleseed offers an ambitious rewrite of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde for Halloween

Splitting hairs: From left, Christiana Molldrem, James Uva and Daniel Rowlands in Appleseed’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

It’s long been a part of the language: “a Jekyll and Hyde personality.” We don’t have to have read the 1886 novella to get the drift. According to what Robert Louis Stevenson explained about his invention, the initial idea came to him in a dream, although it has long been speculated to have been inspired by the savage Jack-the-Ripper murders that took place at the same time. An ordinary good man could have a cruel, evil double.

In any case, the story used to look like one of the prime models of Victorian horror. Ah, says contemporary playwright Jeffrey Hatcher in his adaptation of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, if only the question of good and evil were so simple. The Hatcher interpretation is currently being mounted by Appleseed Productions at the Atonement Lutheran Church, 116 W. Glen Ave.

Still in his early 40s, Hatcher may not yet be a household name but he has connected well with local audiences each time his work appears. In 2003 Le Moyne College staged his hilarious Crash, adapting an early George Bernard Shaw novel to produce a stage work equal to the master. Bill Molesky and Shannon Tompkins’ both won honors from the Syracuse New Times Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) Awards for their appearances in Hatcher’s A Picasso in 2007. And last year veteran Rosemary Palladino Leone gave one of her best performances ever in Hatcher’s Three Viewings, a comedy set in a funeral parlor. To say nothing of the words Hatcher put in Keira Knightley’s lovely celluloid lips in The Duchess (2008).

Hatcher’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, which opened in Phoenix early last year, makes Stevenson’s view look almost comforting. Instead of being a “deconstruction,” that modish concept, it retells the story in period costume and reflects the wider experience we have had with evil in the past 123 years. Not only the Holocaust and the slaughter of the Tutsis, but the legions of “willing executioners,” bland-looking ordinary people who play along, committing silent heinous deeds with impunity. So the vicious Mr. Hyde doesn’t just pop up after the quaffing of a magic formula, he’s everywhere.

At the beginning of the action, some familiar names and themes make us feel we’re embarking on a well-worn journey. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jim Uva) is an intellectually ambitious young progressive doctor and scientist, befriended by the reliable Gabriel Utterson (Alan D. Stillman), but running into trouble with a tiresome reactionary, Sir Danvers Carew (David B. Vickers). In an uproarious masterpiece of political incorrectness, Sir Danvers examines the corpse of a sex crime victim (an unnamed, apparently live, undressed lady, not named in the program) and pronounces her—and her smaller brain—responsible for her own death

In most versions of the story, including Frank Wildhorn’s widely produced musical, an initial complication arises when Dr. Jekyll becomes involved with Carew’s beautiful and virtuous daughter, who goes under different names in different productions, such as Muriel or Emma. Hatcher prudently sees this creature as a Victorian twit and leaves her out of the script. The naughtier girls, under different names, will appear later.

Before we get further into the action, we see that Hatcher has several other tricks to share with us. Very much a friend to actors, the playwright wants to enlarge their work and give them more ways to delight us than simply having them shout “Boo!’ in the dark. The device is not only economical (fewer actors equals less cost), it expands upon what Hatcher seems to be telling us about Stevenson’s original notion. Just as a single body can have more than one identity, so a single performer can present us with a succession of identities.

Nowhere does the device work better than in the casting of diminutive (4-foot-11) Indian-American actress Binaifer Dabu. When we first see her she’s a crying child with a shawl over her head. A few minutes later she’s transmogrified into a man (shades of Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously!). First it’s the servant Poole, a character that appears in Stevenson’s novella, although usually as a stolid Brit. Here, dressed in a dark morning coat and trousers, Poole also sports a white turban and speaks with a muted Indian accent. More men and more women and possibly a hermaphrodite will follow.

Having dumped the good girl, Hatcher still needs the bad girls, although they do not bear names of the tarts of earlier dramatizations, Ivy or Lucy, as she is in the Wildhorn musical. The prime baddie, Elizabeth Jelkes (Christiana Molldrem), is somewhat elastic. An otherwise innocent woman, Margaret Mary Walsh (Jennifer DeCook) speaks for moral ambiguity, unsure whether to choose her good side, identifying with the suffering of victims, or opting for the bad, and relishing the voyeurism of seeing what crime has wrought.

As in previous stagings of the Jekyll-Hyde story, much of the dialogue is both scientific and metaphysical, in which the good doctor consults with his colleagues, in this case the burly Richard Enfield (John Brackett) and the bearded, Scottish-accented Dr. H.K. Lanyon (Daniel Rowlands). What Hatcher wants us to see is that these men also have more than one face to show the world.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde comes to us under the guidance of William Edward White, always Appleseed Productions’ most adventuresome director, the man who also brought us Capek’s R.U.R. He is given a huge assist from Navroz N. Dabu’s gothic set with mobile door. The entire stage reeks with the menacing gloom of James Whale-level creepiness from the 1930s Universal horror movies, a real accomplishment in a church basement theater. The necessary transformations into Mr. Hyde, which cannot be fully discussed, work well but one is a feat of legerdemain worthy of its own ovation. Terry LaCasse’s staging of the fight scenes also deserve high praise. White’s music also succeeds in building atmosphere, but it’s a mistake to take items sure to be familiar to casual classical music buffs.

This is Appleseed’s Halloween gift to the community. It’s a show where things go bump in the night, more than you bargained for.

—JAMES MACKILLOP

(Black Box Theater/Steinberg Center for Theater; 62 seats; $20 top)

By MARILYN STASIO (Variety)

‘Ordinary Days’

A Roundabout Theater Company presentation, in association with Jill Rafson and Josh Fiedler, of a musical in one act with music and lyrics by Adam Gwon. Directed by Marc Bruni. Music direction, Vadim Feichtner.
Warren – Jared Gertner
Deb – Kate Wetherhead
Jason – Hunter Foster
Claire – Lisa Brescia

The problem with Adam Gwon’s musical "Ordinary Days" lies in its central conceit of being about ordinary people expressing their ordinary thoughts as they go about their ordinary business on an ordinary day in New York. Neither New York nor the New York theater is especially kind to ordinary people — like the show’s two young couples struggling to make meaningful connections in an uncaring city of strangers. For all the technical proficiency of Gwon’s work and Marc Bruni’s staging, the musical is buried under its own banality.

Despite its modest designation as the Roundabout’s official Black Box Theater, this gorgeous little bandbox space is prime real estate, providing theatergoers with a rare opportunity to experience "downtown" experimental work in an off-the-Main Stem location. (The 62-seat house previously showcased "Speech and Debate" and "The Language of Trees," also under the Roundabout Underground banner.) It seems counterproductive, then, to serve up something mundane.

Which is not to say Gwon isn’t trying to make something extraordinary of the four ordinary people here, starting with Warren (Jared Gertner, making a naked plea for affection). Gay, sensitive and obviously lonely, Warren has made himself "an ambassador" for a downtown graffiti artist currently doing jail time for spraying his inspirational thoughts (on the order of "Kindness Is a Virtue That Is Often Times Ignored") all over the city. Having printed these insipid sayings onto little colored cards, in "One by One by One" he tries to press them upon busy New Yorkers who are understandably loath to touch them.

Despite coming up with an ingenious stunt to promote his vision, this frustrated would-be artist is what he is — and there are lots of him around.

The same might be said of Deb (Kate Wetherhead), a perky model of all those sad girls who give themselves bohemian airs to mask the aimlessness of their lives. But while Wetherhead adopts some cute vocal quirks to deliver darling Deb’s manifesto in "Don’t Wanna Be Here" (and Lisa Zinni comes through with some adorable costumes), there’s one of her in every downtown coffeehouse.

Because they’ve ripened on the vine for an extra decade, the older couple would seem to have a better chance to show some character development. But in "The Space Between," Jason (Hunter Foster, looking poleaxed) is a painfully obvious spokesman for the commitment issues of socially retarded New York singles, and the incremental changes in his character are easily overlooked.

Only Claire (a sweet-voiced Lisa Brescia) has a legitimate arc to play in her final solo, "I’ll Be Here" — and to give it away would spoil the show’s sole moving moment.

With three new shows coming up and significant grant-inducing work behind him, Gwon has hardly trashed his rep as one of those gifted young creatives everyone wants a piece of. He sets his smooth, easily digestible melodies to clever, nonthreatening lyrics that have a remarkable narrative thrust to them. That takes genuine talent.

But so does writing characters with real brains and honest feelings — and that’s one talent Gwon hasn’t quite mastered on his own.

Sets, Lee Savage; costumes, Lisa Zinni; lighting, Jeff Croiter; sound, Daniel Erdberg; orchestrations, Andy Einhorn; production stage manager, Megan Smith. Opened Oct. 25, 2009. Reviewed Oct. 21. Running time: 1 HOUR, 15 MIN.

(Hartford Stage, Hartford, Conn.; 441 seats; $192 top)

By FRANK RIZZO (Variety)

Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey in part 2 (’Story of Marriage’) of Horton Foote’s 9-hour, three-part ‘Orphan’s Home Cycle.’

A Hartford Stage, Signature Theater Company presentation of a play cycle in three parts and nine acts by Horton Foote. Directed by Michael Wilson.
Horace Robedaux … Bill Heck
Elizabeth Robedaux … Maggie Lacey
Mary Vaughan … Hallie Foote
Henry Vaughan … James DeMarse
Corella Davenport … Annalee Jefferies

Horton Foote spent his life combing the commonplace to write plain-spoken family dramas that are compassionate yet brutally honest, and startling in their depth and resonance. In "The Orphans’ Home Cycle," he folds nine related plays into three parts, crafting an intimate American epic that’s at once personal and panoramic. Foote finished editing the cycle shortly before his death this year at age 92; the plays follow the 26-year journey of Horace Robedaux, based on the writer’s father, from displaced child to struggling young adult to family patriarch.

In his final gift to the theater Foote has created a work of gentle existentialism. It asks: Why do things happen in life the way they do? That Foote’s central character ultimately accepts the mystery and finds his own sense of love, home and peace is as quietly profound as a zen master’s prayer.

Following its Hartford Stage run, the co-production moves in November to Off Broadway’s Signature Theater Company. Marathon performances presenting all nine plays over a single day debuted in the final weekends of the Connecticut engagement.

Each of the pieces can stand alone. (Indeed, most have been produced elsewhere, with four adapted into indie films and two plays premiering here.) Taken in a big gulp or longer sips over three perfs, this saga of three families responding to the changing social, economic and personal conditions in a single community becomes a transformative work and its production a stunning achievement.

The cycle is set during the first three decades of the 20th century in the fictional town of Harrison, Texas, based on Foote’s native Wharton. Still reeling from the effects of Civil War and Reconstruction, further changes disrupt the town, including a shift in the economic dynamic, a war and a flu pandemic, all chillingly relevant today. But great events often happen offstage, save for the major one that begins the cycle: the death of Paul Horace Robedaux, father of 12-year-old Horace. For Foote and his characters, it’s the aftershocks from these seismic shifts that are most telling.

In the first act, young Horace (Dylan Riley Snyder) learns that his now-widowed mother (Annalee Jefferies) will not be taking him with her to Houston when she remarries. Off on his own in the second act, adolescent Horace (Henry Hodges) experiences the grim realities of life and death on a former plantation that now takes in convicts for its survival.

In the third act of part one — and in the cycle’s subsequent six acts — young adult Horace (Bill Heck) navigates through an unrelentingly harsh life, encountering rejection, betrayals, neglect and temptation until he finds the restorative love of Elizabeth Vaughan (Maggie Lacey), daughter of the town’s richest and most distinguished citizen.

Foote pruned his plays with a knowing hand; even having read the originals one would be at a loss to recall what’s missing. In fact, the drama feels expanded, with place-setting and transitional elements added to heighten the experience and make the combined work fluid.

Foote’s plays demand actors who can fill  in the spaces of his spare but far-from-simple words. Jefferies is extraordinary as she shows her remorse when she encounters the now-adult son she abandoned. As Horace’s eventual father-in-law, James DeMarse masterfully transitions in his feelings toward the young man from contempt to resignation to admiration.

Jenny Dare Paulin brings other colors to the self-centered obliviousness of Horace’s sister Lily Dale; in a single kiss Virginia Kull as the Widow Claire shows the emotional price she pays for her family’s security; and Pamela Payton-Wright brings dignity and complexity to all her roles, from religious matron to spinster aunt.

Heck succeeds in making a laconic, understated and stoic character engaging and touching — someone whose story is worth following. And Lacey gives a warm, grounded perf as Elizabeth.

As the family matriarch, Hallie Foote has a Southern mother-hen’s determination. Her loving blindness to her spoiled son’s disastrous failings — though nearly absurd in the final piece — stands in counterpoint to a parental devotion Horace never experienced.

Building on his close association with the playwright, Hartford a.d. Michael Wilson helms the staggering project — 22 actors, some 70 characters, more than 20 settings — with loving care and a sense of rich theatricality, humor and history.

The superb design team also echoes the Foote ethic with grace. The opus opens with the letters of the play’s title cinematically coming together, proclaiming the beginning of each installment, but also signifying the fragmented nature of the work that eventually pulls together into a greater whole.

Set designers Jeff Cowie and David Barber and lighting designer Rui Rita brilliantly create an evolving yet connected world of memory and meaning, as trains segue into parlors and then into swamps, dry good stores and cemeteries. David Woolard’s period costumes layer on character through detail.

John Gromada’s music and sound and Peter Pucci’s choreography are attuned to the importance song and dance hold in Foote’s world, where church hymns, town dances and popular music played on gramophones and uprights add to the story as well as establish a mood.

There are a few overstated perfs, some missed opportunities, a shaky scene or two (especially in the final part) and a few script conundrums not yet solved. But the cycle will have time to grow as it plays Off Broadway, where the first marathon is scheduled for February.

Sets, Jeff Cowie, David Barber; costumes, David C. Woolard; lighting, Rui Rita; original music and sound, John Gromada; projections, Jan Hartley; choreography, Peter Pucci; production stage manager, Cole P. Bonenberger. Opened Oct. 17, 2009. Reviewed, Oct. 24. Running time: 9 HOURS.

With: Devon Abner, Pat Bowie, Leon Addison Brown, Justin Fuller, Jasmine Harrison, Henry Hodges, Georgi James, Virginia Kull, Gilbert Owuor, Jenny Dare Paulin, Pamela Payton-Wright, Bryce Pinkham, Stephen Plunkett, Lucas Caleb Rooney, Dylan Riley Snyder, Charles Turner.