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www.broadwayreview.com Cape May, the southernmost destination on the Jersey Shore, is best known for the Victorian houses lining its streets. It also offers visitors a wellspring of culture, including concerts, cabarets, family entertainment and two Equity theaters. The older of them, East Lynne Theater Company (founded in 1980), focuses exclusively on early American theater — plays and playwrights from the 19th century or first few decades of the 20th century. Thus, it gives voice and body on stage to the era represented so photogenically by the town's architecture. The company is now presenting Four by Four, an evening of short plays by Louisa May Alcott, William Dean Howells, William Gillette and Elmer Rice. With its unique mission, East Lynne functions as both a theater producer and a cultural preservationist, and its respect for this period in theater history is, as the saying goes, in the details. Placards on an easel announce each play's title, intermission and "the end." A prologue briefs audience members on the history of the one-act. Marion T. Brady's excellent period costumes include a smoking jacket and several different long dress and hat ensembles. The direction by Gayle Stahlhuth recreates old-timey theatrics with freeze-poses followed by a blackout to end each playlet and an acting style less natural than today's, as benefits these pre-O'Neill works Every actor appears in at least three of the plays, so they are to be commended for their stamina as well as their commitment to each character, no matter the size of the role or the tone of the piece. Handsome Damon Bonetti gets to play both carefree bachelor (in Howells' "The Smoking Car") and befuddled husband (in the Rice piece); twittery Dawn Harvey is the busiest of the cast, with half a dozen roles of varying genders between the four plays. Mark Edward Lang is a solid presence even though, as the character of Gillette's "The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes,Ó he says virtually nothing in what turns out to be a monologue by a flustered client. Alison J. Murphy, who plays the client (a part created for Ethel Barrymore), among other roles, proves an appealing, interesting actress, with cheekbones and mannerisms of a young Meryl Streep. Four by Four harkens back to a time when playwrights would resolve any scenario, even an abandoned baby or a divorce suit, with a laugh. Though they predate the age of serious drama, the plays showcase a variety of genres, from Alcott's melodrama "BiancaÓ (written for the Alcott sisters to perform), with its Perils of Pauline and Romeo and Juliet type conflicts; to the screwball comedy/farce of "The Smoking Car", involving an infant left on board a train; to Rice's play, "The Passing of Chow-Chow", which — while lacking the social conscience of his later, more famous works — takes some satiric jabs at marriage and lawyers. Overall, East Lynne offers a lighthearted evening of theater that celebrates our nation's heritage. In these days of tattered flags dangling from car antennas, that's a true and meaningful act of patriotism. |
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