From the Archives - A Rare Treat for Theatergoers: 'Lady in the Dark' (1998)

This review appeared in The Metro Herald in May 1998, twenty years ago this month.

A Rare Treat for Theatergoers: Lady in the Dark

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Idiosyncrasy saves us from boredom and blandness. In a world of popular culture driven by focus groups, polls, and plagiarism, it's no wonder that television and the theatre seem infected by a sameness virus. Luckily, individual human choices are able to transcend this groupthink. And the American Century Theater (TACT) in Arlington shows us how the idiosyncratic choices of a few individuals can slash through the morass of predictability and yawns we have grown to expect from so many cultural institutions.

Last season's Orson Welles' Moby Dick Rehearsed, for instance, was a triumph of physicality and illusion. The show had to be extended several times -- yet it was a play that hardly anyone had ever heard about before the TACT production.

Artistic director Jack Marshall has done it again with Lady in the Dark. Except, in this case, TACT is presenting a play that almost all literate theatergoers have heard about, but hardly anyone under the age of 80 has seen.

Lady in the Dark, with a libretto by Moss Hart, music by Kurt Weill, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, frequently appears on lists of the "greatest American musicals." Yet it is not part of the basic musical theatre repertoire. Some plays become classics because of repetition -- what community theatre company has not already performed Guys and Dolls or The Fantasticks three or four times? Some become classics because of a special cult status. Anyone Can Whistle achieved this when it closed after nine performances, but its producers were canny enough to record an original cast album.


Lady in the Dark is of a different breed. It closed after less then a year when leading lady Gertrude Lawrence left the show. It had no original cast album (the concept had not yet emerged in 1941). According to research by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, fewer than 20 productions of Lady in the Dark have been mounted since 1942. This production by the American Century Theater is the first since 1965. Its reputation grew through the Hot Stove League of musical theater aficionados. It's discussed with the same distant admiration as baseball fans banter about a one-season pitching phenomenon of the 1930s. Textbooks explore it at length. Anthologies include it. But no one has seen it.

Except for three songs in the second act -- "Tchaichowsky," "The Saga of Jenny," and "My Ship" -- hardly a soul has heard any of the score. Yet Lady in the Dark is legendary. Why?

In January 1941, Lady in the Dark set records for expenditure. The production cost a then-unimaginable $150,000. (At the time, top ticket prices for Broadway plays were $4.40.) It had four interlocking turntables, extravagant sets and costumes, and a cast of 50 that included Danny Kaye, Victor Mature, MacDonald Carey, and Natalie Schafer (later Mrs. Thurston Howell on Gilligan's Island). Weill scored the show for a full symphony orchestra.

Theater lore has it that later producers found the show entirely too daunting. Jack Marshall, however, is dauntless.

It is said that theatre requires nothing more than actors, a performing space, and lighting. Everything else is gravy -- bells and whistles, smoke and mirrors. TACT proves that it is possible to mount a complicated, literate musical play without the special effects that so frightened other producers. In the small black-box theatre at Gunston Arts Center, set designer Hal Crawford and lighting designer David Walden have created a workable space that does all that is necessary to convey what Hart and his colleagues intended.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Lady in the Dark is basically a non-musical play with extended musical sequences. The musical sequences -- little one-act operas -- exist only in the dreams of troubled magazine editor Liza Elliott (Maureen Kerrigan). The non-musical scenes are played out in the drab offices of Elliott and her psychoanalyst, Dr. Brooks (Bernard Engel). Significantly, these scenes are played at the most distant edges of the stage, as far from the audience as possible. This allows the musical scenes to take up the fullest extent of the performing space, literally blossoming before our eyes with the colorful costumes of designer Edu. Bernardino.

Liza, a driven career woman, has suddenly begun to have panic attacks and fits of depression. For these, she seeks the help of Dr. Brooks. In what may be the play's most unsatisfactory facet, she resolves her problems in barely a week. Within that week, however, we are able to observe the inner workings of Liza's mind -- the "lady" in the "dark."

Given the structure of the play, with dream sequences being as disjointed as dreams are, the commercial temptation for Weill and Gershwin would have been to write a collection of potential hit songs -- something in the revue tradition of the Ziegfeld Follies or Garrick Gaieties. Instead, they wrote integrated, operatic playlets in which discrete songs are difficult to discern at all. Ironically, the play itself does not nearly approach the full integration that Rodgers and Hammerstein achieved with Oklahoma! two years later, setting the standard for American musical theatre for the next quarter century.

The play does, however, give opportunities for both dramatic and musical virtuoso performances. Standout Jason Gilbert is manic as photographer Russell Paxton. Buzz Mauro is pleasingly sleazy as advertising director, Charley Johnson, a perfect foil for "boss lady" Liza. Timothy Hayes Lynch is appropriately, WASPishly staid as Liza's longtime live-in lover, Kendall Nesbitt. In a small but important role as high-school student Ben Butler, Kerry DeMatteis is sweetly but unintentionally inconsiderate (and well-cast for age -- DeMatteis seems not to have aged a day since his Washington area debut in a Georgetown University production of Gemini almost 14 years ago). Somewhat off the mark, however, is Tom Manger as Randy Curtis, who simply fails to come across convincingly as a Hollywood matinee idol.

Aside from Liza, the female roles in Lady in the Dark are underwritten, but Mary McGowan is a finely-tuned Maggie Grant, Liza's right hand, and Brenda Wesner gets a few comic turns as Allison DuBois.

There is a reason, unfortunately, to feel sorry for all these talented cast members. They will now put Lady in the Dark on their resumes -- but no one will believe them. No one, that is, except for those who hear about the American Century Theater's bold decision to mount a play that scares off richer and more powerful producers.

Lady in the Dark has been extended through May 30 at the Gunston Arts Center, Theatre II, 2700 S. Lang Street, Arlington, Virginia. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with 2:30 matinees on May 16, 17, and 23. Tickets are $20 and $17 (students/seniors). For information and reservations, call 703-553-8782.

From the Archives: Review of TAP's 1999 'Damn Yankees'

Searching through the archives, I found this article from 17 years ago, the same day that my review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was published.

The following review of a community theatre production in Arlington, Virginia, appeared in The Metro Herald (Alexandria, Va.) on May 21, 1999:

TAP’S DAMN YANKEES HAS A LOT OF HEART

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

One of the great things about community theatre is that, when the cast is having fun on stage, the audience knows it. The sense of delight – and, yes, community – imparted by amateurs having a good time is infectious. While the Washington area is blessed with numerous top-notch professional and semi-professional theatres, there is something refreshing about seeing a group of actors, singers, and dancers putting on a show for the sheer joy of it, without worrying about the next audition, next paycheck, or the next job waiting tables.

Thus it is with the Arlington Players’ current production of Damn Yankees at the Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre. It may be true that not every step is in place, not every not is hit just so, and not every line is delivered with equal panache – but the energy and enthusiasm of the cast and enthusiasm of the cast and crew shines through and overcomes any “amateurism” in the pejorative sense. This sensibility even comes through in the sound of the community theatre (and also the high school theatre) orchestra, which has a certain raw, rough-edged sound that, while never being exactly “off,” still lacks the pristine precision of a professional ensemble. This lack of polish is not a flaw; instead, it is endearing.

It is particularly gratifying that director-choreographer Christopher Dykton has chosen to use the original script of Damn Yankees from the 1950s, rather than the compressed, rewritten book from the 1995 revival (which played the Kennedy Center in late 1996 with Jerry Lewis as Applegate; see The Metro Herald for December 28, 1996). That latter work eliminated some characters and changed others (“Sister,” for instance, is a hometown friend of Meg Boyd in the original, but she becomes Meg’s sister – what else? – in the rewrite.) Although the original script has some lame jokes and some anachronisms, it retains a better exposition than its successor. We learn, for instance, that Meg and Joe Boyd are two members of a colony of transplants from Hannibal, Missouri, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Who knew? (Two of the puzzling anachronisms: The play is set in 1955, yet Lola is introduced to Joe by Applegate as “Miss West Indies of 1957.” And in the opening number, “Six Months Out of Every Year,” Meg sings that she and Joe met in November of 1938 and married soon thereafter; later in the show, Joe says he got married at age 20. This means that Joe would be about 37 years old in 1955, yet he is played as someone in his mid- to late 50s. A simple change of that lyric to “1928” would solve the problem.)

Perhaps it is this hearkening to a simpler time that allows the cast to relax and enjoy themselves as they recreate the material on stage. All the performers put their all into their roles. You can almost see them licking their lips in satisfaction after a number ends successfully.

Of the principals, perhaps Chuck Dluhy is the most perfectly cast as Mr. Applegate, the devil who comes to Washington. Dluhy’s slinky performance reminds us of Bob Fosse as the snake in The Little Prince, and how appropriate can that be? After all, the original Damn Yankees was choreographed by Fosse, and there are echoes of his style in Dykton’s dances. Unfortunately, despite the enthusiasm of the chorus, the choreography here is much better conceived than it is executed.

Dluhy is well-matched with Kathryn Fuller as Lola, the vamp who used to be “the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island.” Fuller’s height contrasted with Dluhy’s diminutive stature turns them into a Mutt-n-Jeff team that works remarkably well. And the red and black costumes designed for the pair by Susan Chong are delightfully devilish.

If there is any problem in casting, it is, unfortunately, in Darrin J. Friedman’s Joe Hardy. He seems weaker than he should be, and this manifests itself the moment Friedman appears on stage, taking up the song “Goodbye, Old Girl,” where his older alter ego, Joe Boyd (Jim Golterman) leaves off, Friedman turns out to have a lighter voice than Golterman, when the opposite should be true. Boyd should have a voice that sounds worn, while Hardy should be booming. That’s not the case here.

Much of the rest of the show relies on good, strong ensemble work, and Dykton squeezes that out of his cast to good effect. It is difficult to pick out the stand-outs, but special message should be made of Kerry DeMatteis as Rocky, Christopher Smith as Vernon, Matt Steffens as Strane, Steve Gluckman as Mickey, and Wyatt Fenner in multiple supporting roles.

Damn Yankees has a number of wonderful, tuneful songs, including “You’ve Gotta Have Heart,” “Whatever Lola Wants,” “A Man Doesn’t Know What He Has,” and the comic baseball song, “The Game.” It also has what is perhaps the most clearly superfluous song in all of musical theatre, “Who’s Got the Pain,” a mambo number that was obviously designed to give Gwen Verdon (the original Lola) a chance to show off her special talents. It serves no other purpose.

If you want to have a good time and escape into the arms of a strong community of players, then go see Damn Yankees.

* * * * *

Damn Yankees continues through May 29 at the Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre, 125 South Old Glebe Road in Arlington (near the intersection of Route 50 and Glebe Road). Performances are Friday-Sunday, 8:00 PM, with a matinee this Sunday, May 23, 2:30 PM. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for seniors and juniors (18 or younger).

For reservations, call the Arlington Players, 703/549-1063, or visit the TAP Website at http://www.come.to/the_arlington_players.

For the record, the current web site of The Arlington Players is http://www.thearlingtonplayers.org/. Damn Yankees was written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (music), Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (lyrics), Douglass Wallop and George Abbott (book; based on Wallop's novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant). The original production was directed by George Abbott.