Reviews and Press from the Lyric Stage Company of Boston production of THIS WONDERFUL LIFE
...from Broadway World
This Wonderful Life
By Steve Murray
Conceived by Mark Setlock
Directed by Jack Neary; Scenic Designer, Jenna McFarland Lord;
Costume Designer, Stephanie Cluggish; Lighting Designer, John Cuff; Sound
Designer, Dewey Dellay; Production Stage Manager, Nerys Powell; Assistant Stage
Manager, Amy Weissenstein
Featuring Neil A. Casey as Narrator and the residents of Bedford
Falls
Performances through December 22 at The Lyric Stage Company of
Boston
Box Office 617-585-5678 or www.lyricstage.com
Let us all rise and sing a chorus of "Hallelujah" to
Neil A. Casey and the Lyric Stage Company for bringing a fabulous gift to
Boston's holiday party with the New England premiere of Steve Murray's This
Wonderful Life. Bedford Falls and all of its inhabitants, both beloved and
loathed, come to life in the performance of just one man in this homage to
Frank Capra's film, It's A Wonderful Life.
It is a treat when the local theatres offer more than the
traditional Dickens play in December, but this production is a sheer delight,
thanks to the prescience of Producing Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos. When he
read the script last year, he immediately thought of casting Neil Casey and
only Casey. The actor never did a one-man show before and couldn't pass up the
opportunity. Lucky for us! Director Jack Neary is at the helm of a solo act for
the first time, but attributes their successful working relationship to a
shared sense of humor and ethnic background.
For fans of the film, you'll recognize all of your favorite
characters as introduced by Casey: Jimmy Stewart? A little stutter and a
particular reshaping of the mouth, not to mention the familiar gesture of
wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; Donna Reed? Just look dreamy and
doe-eyed; Lionel Barrymore? Scrunch down in a chair with an evil, Cheney-like
grin; and Sheldon Leonard? Unmistakably spot on as Nick, the gruff, tough guy
bartender. Sam Wainwright, Uncle Billy, Bert, Ernie, Clarence, and Zuzu are all
there, too. Twinkling lights represent the senior angels in heaven, and Casey
voices them, as well (pre-recorded).
It is an accomplishment to learn all the lines and the blocking,
an achievement to differentiate each of the 32 characters, but artistry to
convey both the message and the magic of the story with such ease and joy to
the audience. While Casey is best known locally for many great comic roles, he
absolutely nails the dramatic moments in Life, especially when George is coming
undone leading up to his attempted suicide, and again when he finally grasps
how wonderful his life has been. Showing his serious side does nothing to
diminish Casey's comedic chops and he plays the physical humor for all it's
worth. Picture Neil as both George and Mary dancing the Charleston at the high
school and tumbling into the (imagined) swimming pool, or gallivanting around
the stage from prop to prop as he narrates an abbreviated version of the events
at the opening of the show.
Actor and director certainly deserve equal credit for seamless
transitions from one character to another, especially when love is blooming as
George and Mary share a candlestick telephone and it almost seems as if there
are two people in the scene. Neary establishes excellent pacing throughout and
Casey is a master of comic timing. With these two, the pauses are often as
entertaining as the action and the performance comes to its happy ending long
before we're ready to leave Bedford Falls. All of the drama, laughs, and
heartwarming schmaltz of the original are intact, yet the play stands on its
own.
Jenna McFarland Lord has designed a black and white set to
replicate the feel of the film. Each segment of the stage has a prop to
represent a locale, from the "You Are Now Entering Bedford Falls"
sign, to the front porch of the Bailey house, to Old Man Potter's desk, to the
soda fountain at the pharmacy, to the staircase at 320 Sycamore, including the
pesky loose newel. While Stephanie Cluggish dresses Casey in earth tones and a
red striped necktie for a splash of color, Casey himself brightens the stage
with his personality and the able assistance of John Cuff's lighting. Thanks to
Dewey Dellay's sound design, we hear those heavenly angels loud and clear and
know when Clarence gets his wings. George Bailey says, " 'Atta boy,
Clarence!" I say, " 'Atta boy, Casey!"
...from The Boston Globe
He plays George Bailey, and 31 others
The holiday market is a demanding one. It needs fresh treats every
year, and yet they must also be soothingly familiar. And there are only so many
tickets to be sold for "A Christmas Carol" or "The
Nutcracker."
For those who have never seen the movie - both of you - it's about
an apprentice angel named Clarence who saves the life of a despairing Everyman,
George Bailey, by showing him how different the world would be if he'd never
lived. At this point it's more than a heartwarming story; it's an annual
tradition for many people, lots of whom could probably recite the lines as
easily as Casey does.
For such fans, this take on their beloved Christmas ornament may
feel a tad irreverent - but only a tad, because Murray's script offers only the
kind of gentle teasing we direct at our loved ones. As for those who aren't
fans, the play's charms may be lost on them; young children, especially, may
not grasp the delight of seeing Casey replicate a familiar gesture or nail a
vocal mannerism, whether it's Jimmy Stewart's or Donna Reed's.
For the rest of us, those who know the movie but aren't obsessed
with it, "This Wonderful Life" provides 90 light minutes of holiday
cheer, with the same tinge of darkness that gives the original its staying
power. Like Dickens, Capra knew that sugar is too sweet by itself; we need to
be reminded how truly bleak life can be sometimes in order to embrace its, um,
wonderfulness at the end.
What's most enjoyable about watching this show, as opposed (or in
addition) to pulling out the video, is the chance to see Casey at work. He's
light on his feet, he's charming, he's a delightful mimic, and he radiates an
intelligent sweetness that seems exactly suited to the Capra spirit. If
Murray's script occasionally burdens him with an excess of narrative
exposition, he nevertheless manages to glide right through it, thanks to Jack
Neary's swiftly paced direction and to his own sharp timing.
Besides, excessive exposition is almost inevitable in an
undertaking like this: How else would a one-man show depict the big dance in
the school gym, where the floor opens up to reveal the huge swimming pool
below? Casey executes a brief description of the action, then caps it with a
comic pratfall into the "water" so nicely done that we can almost
hear the splash.
Lighting designer John Cuff's special effects won't bankrupt the
Lyric, as they consist of a tiny swarm of twinkling lights for the angel's home
galaxy. Jenna McFarland Lord's set provides just what Casey needs, and not a
stick more: the steel trusses of the fateful bridge loom at center stage,
surrounded by a banker's desk, a porch door, a bar, and even the rickety
banister of the Bailey home. The floor reveals a particularly sweet touch: It's
black, white, and mostly gray, and it works unobtrusively as both indoor rug
and outdoor pavement - until you spy the copyright notice in small print across
the front, and realize that the black-bordered gray expanse also reads as a
frame of film.
"This Wonderful Life" isn't big or wild or showy, but
then it shouldn't be. Like the film that inspired it, it quietly celebrates a
simple truth: Little things mean more than we know.
...from The Edge, Boston
This Wonderful Life
by Kilian Melloy
Tuesday Nov 27, 2007
In a season of schmaltz and sentiment, itÕs easy to get overfed on
cheap and sugary fare. One of the few Christmas movies that has a right to be
sweet and sentimental and to demand a share of our attention, is Frank CapraÕs
1946 film ItÕs a Wonderful Life, and thatÕs because itÕs a movie with a point
to make, not simply more empty calories dusted over with powdered sugar.
In the movie, a guardian angel is dispatched to stop a man from
committing suicide on Christmas Eve; the man, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart),
has spent his life delaying and setting aside his own gratification and
standing up to the local slum lord, Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) in defense of
the townspeople, helping them, by dint of his tiny bank, to claim their share
of the American Dream and own their own homes.
But GeorgeÕs good deeds are reviled by Mr. Potter, who seizes a
chance to destroy GeorgeÕs bank and his good name; driven to despair, feeling
that the life heÕd led is not the life he wanted or deserves, George heads for
a bridge with thoughts of a suicidal plunge on his mind and a fat life
insurance policy in his pocket.
However, GeorgeÕs guardian angel, a fellow named Clarence (Henry
Travers), shows George what the town of Bedford Falls would have been like had
GeorgeÕs wish never to have been born been granted: gin joints, loose women,
and seedy bars would have grown up alongside the slums, rather than the decent
neighborhoods that George helped to build. GeorgeÕs life consists, as the
proverb has it, of the things heÕs done while wishing he were doing other
things: but they have been helpful, neighborly things heÕs done with his life,
and theyÕve made a great difference to his townsfolk. Once he sees how much he
has meant to his community, GeorgeÕs problems (and the biggest of them is his
sense of dissatisfaction) melt away.
CapraÕs film is more than a yuletide bromide: itÕs a story about
hope and responsibility,about the joy of living for something more substantial
than whim, and connecting to the deep and useful work of supporting oneÕs
community. If anything describes the true Christmas spirit, itÕs the values
described for us by ItÕs A Wonderful Life.
Bringing a movie to the stage is always a risky proposition: look
at the disaster that was Wings of Desire, or the energetic mess that was the
result of adapting Donnie Darko.
Given those risks, adapting ItÕs a Wonderful Life as a one-man
show seems like utter lunacy. Perhaps it is; but itÕs lunacy of the best sort,
and the result is a charming, touching evocation of the movie, rather than an
attempt to re-enact the film, with its 32 characters, in a theatrical manner.
The play, titled This Wonderful Life, began as a commission by
Portland Center Stage to playwright Steve Murray, who wisely chose to approach
the stage adaptation as a retelling in the most literal sense of the word: one
actor describing, acting out, and commenting on, the story we know from the
film. In this case, the actor is Neil A. Casey, and he inhabits the play so
comfortably that even when heÕs forced to ad lib (to cover for missed sound
cues), heÕs right in character and right there with the audience.
Not only does Casey bring a perfect blend of reverence and jest to
his performance (the script respects the source material but also knows how to
poke fun at it, giving voice to a contemporary attitude toward the simplified
view of life that 1940s cinema embraced; local bar owner and immigrant Mr.
Martini, for example, is described as being "One of the cherished and
amusing ethnic stereotypes allowed to live in Bedford Falls"), but he
knows how to tell a story of this sort: a long, complete description of a
beloved movie enhanced with recordings, sets, and the occasional special effect
(clusters of lights to represent angels, sparkling stars serving as a
backdrop). Casey also does a dead-on Jimmy Stewart impression.
The direction by Jack Neary works seamlessly with the material and
with CaseyÕs natural approach; the set, by Jenna McFarland Lord, fits right in,
with bits of different locales: a section of bridge, a house exterior, a spot
of bar, a staircase. The lighting, by John Cuff, ranges from a dappled, blue
and white illumination that looks nocturnal, wintery, and elementally 1940s, to
golden and nostalgic.
ItÕs totally uncool to get choked up by Christmas shows, because
Christmas has been turned into such a long, loud marketing ploy; This Wonderful
Life gives you permission to be moved by its story. Even Casey has to pause for
a moment in the final scene, confessing to the audience, "This part always
gets me." Sure it does: after all, itÕs Wonderful.
This Wonderful Life plays at the Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, Copley Square, in Boston, through Dec. 22. Wed. and Thur. shows are at 7:00 p.m. (with 2:00 p.m. shows offered on Wed. Nov. 28 and Wed. Dec. 19); Fri. shows are at 8:00 p.m.; Sat. shows are at 4:00 and 8:00 p.m.; Sun. shows are at 3:00 p.m.