Without a sprig of holly, a dash of New Testament or a smidgen of Scrooge, Dobama Theatre has found ways to satiate some of our most profound Yuletide yearnings. As partakers of Viagra may know, there’s an urgent desire in our society for constant resurrection.
So first let us proclaim that the theater’s new space in the annex
of the Cleveland Heights/University Heights Library has the same cozy,
semi-round thrust stage and intimacy of its Coventry Road predecessor,
sans the frightening smells and sounds of scraping chairs issuing from
the bar above.
But the new play’s the thing. The archetypal Clevelander is plagued
by a grass-is-always-greener complex concerning the theatrical wares of
other cities. We seem to be mired in a stew, as Johnny Mercer might
have put it, of Methusilated reruns of desiccated whimsy.
Gutenberg! The Musical! opened off-Broadway in 2006 and has
become the darling of such hip metropolises as Chicago. Written for a
two-man cast, it brings to mind a mini-Producers. Best of all,
it unequivocally lives up to its two exclamation points. The premise
finds two desperate writers of a musical frantically acting out their
latest creation in hopes of attracting the interest of one of the many
producers they sense are lurking in the audience.
Their musical is a Mel Brooksian spin on the life of the inventor of
the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg. Like two amphetamine-enriched
professors, they don a multitude of caps, playing character types
ranging from anti-Semites to an evil monk, while bringing to life a
bountiful cast of enough singers, dancers and farceurs to populate
Sardi’s.
Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King for themselves, the show is
like a circus ball being spun dexterously on the nose of a seal for two
helium-filled hours. Without the aid of a ringmaster to keep it afloat,
this ball could easily deflate. Local comic doyen Marc Moritz, in his
first area directing assignment, excels.
Both Dane Castle and Christopher Richards are products of Kent State
University’s musical-theater program, proving that Baldwin-Wallace
College doesn’t hold the monopoly on collegiate brilliance in things
thespian. Seeing these dynamic twentysomethings gives us an inkling of
what it must have been like to have discovered burgeoning comic
geniuses like the early Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis playing Vegas.
Richards, whether playing half of a two-man chorus line or
fluttering arms like a love-struck fräulein, has comedic grace
that borders on the balletic. Watching this intensely likable young
actor in action almost seems compensation for missing the emerging Tom
Hanks at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in the 1970s.
The smaller Castle, with his baby-like aggression and knack for
italicizing insecurity, infuses each scene with comic verisimilitude.
In the George Burns tradition, he’s the comic straight man who makes
his partner sparkle.
Gutenberg! The Musical! confirms that the greatest gift
sometimes comes wrapped in irreverence.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2009.
Chris Richards was great. They should take it to Broadway, after everyone here has seen it twice.