THEATRE - JUNE 18, 2003

Great voices, stellar acting mark this ‘Weird Romance’
By TOM HELMA

All romance is weird in one way or another. I once knew a guy who claimed to have met his future wife while drunk and lurching towards the edge of a fraternity house roof. She yelled "stop!" He stopped lurching, and the rest is history.

Alan Menken's vision of romance opened at the Creole Gallery last Thursday and continues through June 28. Menken and his collaborators David Spencer and Alan Brennert have taken an approach to some broadly philosophical questions about love that combines a blast from the past (the musical genre) with a projection into the near future (the so-called science fiction genre) when science makes love even more complicated than it is now.

Act One of "Weird Romance" subtitled "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" starts out with the bombast of a circus act; a boisterous announcer, and a brassy singing “sister act." Then it suddenly shifts mood. The lights darken a bit and “the girl” limps and shuffles out of a side door onto that small slice of floor space between audience and that stamp-sized stage at the Creole -- a homeless person of the streets, AKA as Philadelphia. Cloth felt hat scrunched down around her ears, she is bug-eyed and wary, carrying two worn paper shopping bags clutched to her breast. The spotlight clicks on, searches, then finds her, and veteran local actor Laura Croff opens her mouth to sing a crystalline lament of loneliness, invisibility, and vulnerability that speaks to the central question of the play.

When we love, do we love more the body or the soul? That question having been raised, Philadelphia is mugged and robbed and left for dead. A few seconds later, she is prone on the stage surrounded by "Red Hot Nurses 1 and 2, one of whom uses a stun gun to bring Philadelphia back to her new life, sitting in "the chair" with an aluminum helmet and electrodes attached to her head, and becoming the surrogate soul for a nifty piece of lab-created Barbie Doll named Delphi.
Philadelphia sleeps, and while she sleeps, she projects her deepest soul into the tabula rasa of Delphi, played expertly by the beautiful Jennifer Johns McCloy. McCloy, an accomplished singer, brings much musical and theatrical depth to this juicy part and is a perfectly balanced counterweight to Croff who sings up her own perfect storm. These two actors capture most of the action of the first play, singing alone and together in perfect poignant pitch and heart-filled harmony. The rest of the nine-member cast, meanwhile, is not slouching. Many of them are in and out of the action, playing multiple parts, adding a substantial chorus of singing voices and significant characterizations.

Director Jeff Croff must have thought he had died and gone to heaven auditioning and selecting this stellar cast. Of particular noteworthiness was Dave Simcox as "Joe," the lab rat overseeing the experiment in soul transfer. Great lines delivered well . . . and what a great singing voice!
Icarus Falling's co-founder Daryl Thompson was literally all-over-the-place with hyperkinetic performances of anonymous reporters and fans, each one with a different hat and voice to boot. As the director of Delphi's first stage performance, he portrayed a stereotype so offensive it was hilarious. Sara Frank, Kari Surbrook and Jamie Desrocher all also added to the richly layered performance with multiple parts as technicians, fans and other characterizations.

The second play, subtitled "Her Pilgrim Soul,” a fragment of the famous Yeats poem, starts out more slowly yet builds to a touching climax. Built on themes relating to reincarnation and the differences between holographic images and reality, this play, derived from a "Twilight Zone" episode, speaks to the challenges faced by all of us as cyber reality gives us the illusion of a heightened sense of reality that is more seductive, more real than ordinary reality.

Gordon Hicks, who does a stand-up performance in the first of these two plays, really comes into his own in this second play, his character learning to let go of the obsessive character of laboratory work to appreciate the emotional intimacy offered by his wife.

Surbrook plays the holograph, Nola, with great sensitivity and when she opens her mouth to sing, you can add one more diva to the list. And add a strong supporting cast to the second of these two plays, too.

It is always challenging to pair two one-act plays. At times, one comes off stronger than the other. This is not one of those times. This is a balanced program of theatre.

Program credits list Laura Croff as also being the musical director. The music was substantial. All voices were strong and the piano work of the mysterious accompanist "Lynn" (first name only) held the whole play together.

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