The Wedding Singer: a play for the sentimental heart joyfully realized
This is a play for the
sentimental heart. Forgive contrivance, forget the cynic in you, It is
pure joy! And BFC brings it home with clout.
This is the 2006 stage
adaptation of the 1998 film. It is romantic comedy for the sheer fun of
it. With a few, small changes—e.g. Billy Idol appears in the film as an
integral part of the plot. Obviously impractical to have Billy Idol in
every production of the show world-wide, there is a funny adaptation
solving the problem—the show flows along the same plot line as the film
but now dressed in lovely songs which often have lyrics so comically
puerile as to be delightfully pleasing.
The style of the film is
duplicated, if blended a bit more smoothly, in the stage version. And
the stage version gives us belly-bounding production numbers like “Not
That Kind of Thing” which kept my companion and me giggling throughout
when we weren’t guffawing. In this show, even depression has us
laughing. Actually, depression has us particularly chortling and gasping
now I come to think of it.
This is the story of the battle
between the romantic and the material worlds. Robbie Hart, the title
character, is the perfect romantic schlub, in love with love,
happy and friendly and without the moral perversity required to make
millions selling junk bonds. Played strongly by Sean Flaherty, when he
tries to get into the money game, he looks hilariously awkward and out
of place in a tie and jacket which give him the appearance of a present
prepared by a drunken gift wrapper at the Goodwill. And Mr. Flaherty’s
first-act “Somebody Kill Me” is one of many tickle-ribbed highlights in
this soft romp.
Sammy and George are Robbie’s
best friends and band mates. Gifted to us in spirited craft by Anthony
Magnotta and Connor Twigg, these two are a grand pair of side-kicks. Mr.
Magnotta is a sweetheart of a street punk, and
Mr. Twigg flames and lights up the stage. Both show strong voices,
strong choices and strong commitments to what they did. And both
provided solo and ensemble moments of brightness to this production. I
thank them for excellent supporting performances.
It would not be a romance without a female lead, and Robyn Hecht is a grand Julia Sullivan. Evocative
of Drew Barrymore’s original, Ms. Hecht has a truly fine performance
voice and presence, with excellent comic timing and intent to match. She
and Mr. Flaherty cut it up royally in “Not That Kind of Thing” near the
end of the first act. With playfully comic banter at once endearing and
believable, they reveal their budding love for each other, and it is
warmingly funny.
Julia is the erstwhile fiancé of a sexist jerk Glen Guglia (goo-li-ya),
played with mean-spirited, jock-headed self-centeredness by Ryan
Ketner, who sparkles in his homage to greed, “All About the Green”. But
the future, painfully named Julia Guglia’s heart belongs to Robbie.
She discovers this with the help
of her best friend and cousin, Holly, given to us in a stand-out
performance by Danielle Harley. Ms. Harley’s brassy, slutty Holly is
everything the play calls for. From rocking us in “Pop” to touching us
with “Right In Front of Your Eyes” Ms. Harley gives us a Holly with
flash and grit. Thank you, Ms. Harley. for your performance. It was a
pleasure to see you and I hope to see you again.
But I admit that the dark-horse
star of the show was Jillian Starr-Renbjor as Rosie, Robbie’s
grandmother. As a grandmother, Ms. Starr-Renbjor bears a striking
resemblance to one of the Disney fairy godmothers, which is why it stops
the show when she busts a rap with Mr. Twigg’s George in “Move That
Thang” near the end of the play. As a duo, they are a flat-out riot,
dancing with unabashed dedication and, well, shaking those grand
"thangs" of theirs. They deservedly got cheers, whistles and applause.
Community theatre requires a
great deal of multitasking and inventiveness to cover shortfalls in
skills and people to employ them. Sarah Dugan both directed and
choreographed the show, which would have been to her credit had she done
both merely adequately. But her staging is fluid and clear. Her
choreography is energetic and diverse, faint praise were she a dancer.
Her training, I believe, is cheer-leading. That’s talent.
This was not a perfect production: My
seat house right in the first row was fabulous for everything but the
grand production numbers. In the case where the stage floor was full of
dancers, my vantage gave me a lot of legs but not the full impact of
the group motion. A suggestion I pass on is to thin the dancers: put
some of them on the upper level so that there aren’t so many of them
dancing together on the main stage floor.
And the one place I was nervous
was “Grow Old Together With You” because Mr. Flaherty is not a guitar
player. I was distracted from the endearing, childlike tenderness of the
song by the unintended clumsiness of the guitar accompaniment. I say
give the guitar to someone onstage who plays, or lose it altogether.
But these imperfections do not count for much in the overall. The
show is a rollicking celebration of romance over the merely crass and
materialistic. If you do not like the engaging joy of well-rendered,
pure entertainment, don’t go near Burlington County Footlighters’ stage
for another couple of weeks. If, however, you like getting a big
entertainment bang for your buck and coming out of a theatre in an
excellent mood, this is the place.
I add a personal response to properties like Wedding Singer because I was taken aback while preparing to write this review. I read Ben Brantley’s 2006 New York Times review. Mr. Brantley wrote:
.
. .the show has at least a flutter of a hedonist's pulse. And if its
formulaic catering to an established public appetite feels cynical, the
cast members exude earnestness and good nature. They are a personable
enough lot, which is not the same as saying that they have personality. .
.
Mr. Brantley expresses a
point of view with which I take exception because it represents the
manner in which a whole segment of theatre has ripped itself away from
the body of daily life. He is correct that this property gives no new
perspective on love or relationships or comedy or music or anything. Why
is it supposed to?
The genre of the insouciant entertainment piece is important to theatre which wishes to expand its patron base. Mr.
Bentley’s elitist disdain for producing simple, glorious entertainments
is a snobbish quibble necessary to feed a system of arts dependent upon
patronage. It is a disaster for a system of arts which depends on the
general public.
Theatre truly wishing
to grow its roots into the community in which it is planted needs to
perform these entertainments to bring more people in. This is not
Machiavellian or narrowly self-serving. The tasks of art are to instruct
and delight. The new audiences are theatre children. Just as you do not
teach traffic safety to a 3-year-old by showing her graphic pictures of
children mauled by cars, you don’t develop audience sophistication by
asking them to see what they can’t enjoy. All we develop with that
tactic is dust on our seats.
Start with the popular
and move from there. In ten years no theatre company will be afraid of
having its patron base packed. There’s plenty of room on the 2022
schedule to scare the cultural pants off them with the cutting edge
piece you like better. The thing is, once they become used to it, they
will like it better, too.
The Wedding Singer
Book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy
Music by Matthew Sklar
Lyrics by Chad Beguelin
Directed by Sarah Dugan
The Playhouse of Burlington County Footlighters
808 Pomona Rd
Cinnaminson, NJ 08077
856-829-7144
Through February 4, 2012
My reviews are written for Stage Magazine, the Delaware Valley's oldest full theatre resource. Please take a look at the Stage site.
If you enjoyed this, take a look at my other work on stage.
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