'Lend Me a Tenor' tantalizes
By Rebecca Brown
Daily Forty-Niner
Characters who over act can often be annoying,
but doing so to exhibit the talents of a high energy and well-seasoned
cast will produce a winning mixture.
The International City Theatre production
of "Lend Me a Tenor," playwright Ken Ludwig's opera-themed farce about
mistaken identity, was performed at the Center Theatre inside the Long
Beach Performing Arts Center on Friday.
The setting is simple, an upscale hotel
room in a posh Cleveland hotel in the early 1930s.
The play opens with Max, (Matthew Walker)
a hopeful operatic understudy clamoring to appease his overbearing and
cantankerous director, Saunders (Frank Ashmore).
Saunders is fuming and blustering over
the lateness of his guest operatic star, Tito Morelli (Skye McKenzie),
who is a boisterous, wine swilling, womanizing tenor who will play Othello
for the Cleveland Opera Company.
Every woman in the play is vying for the
attention of Tito and after a bizarre string of events, Max and Saunders
believe that the singer overdosed on Chianti and pills, due to his jealous
wife storming out of the hotel room.
Near hysterics, Max agrees to don a black
face makeup and frizzy wig to impersonate Tito to keep the show from being
canceled.
As the plot twists and wickedly turns,
more of the characters are spun into a series of mistaken identity mishaps.
One of the most impressive qualities of
the play was the physical stamina of the actors. Walker astounded
the opening night audience with his agility as he catapulted off of the
setís furniture and raced across the stage to create the pandemonium that
makes the play a characteristic slapstick comedy.
Alyse Mandel, who plays Maggie [Max's girlfriend
who is totally infatuated with Tito] streaks across the stage in stilettos
with impressive ease.
"I strapped my shoes to my feet as tight
as possible," she said. "All this exercise is good, though.
Especially in the scene where Iím in that tiny nightgown."
"Lend Me a Tenor" runs from Sept. 3 through
the 26th, Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets
are $28 Thursday and $32 Friday through Sunday.
The Center Theaterís address in the Long
Beach Performing Arts Center is 300 E. Ocean Blvd.
For more information, one may call 938-4128. |
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