Mooning Over Whitaker

Mooning Over Whitaker
Moon Over Buffalo at Theatre Harrisburg

by Lisa Paige-Stone

The curtain rises to expose a stage upon a stage, and so begins Moon Over Buffalo. As characters struggle to control the direction of the rehearsal on which the audience feels it is spying, the human theme of trying to control nasty intruding forces we’d all like to live without emerges and doesn’t retreat until the last curtain falls. The result is a clever and entertaining farce about the vagaries of life, particularly life in repertory theatre during the 1950s, the era when television joined film in stealing the show off the stage. As the play opens, the audience learns that the company is suffering not only from economic woes, but also from entanglements among its owners and staff.

Moon Over Buffalo hit Broadway in 1995, starring Carol Burnett as the tireless and optimistic diva of repertory, Charlotte Hay, who together with her husband George has been struggling for years to ‘make the big time’ (with little success), and to keep their marriage intact (with somewhat more success…until now). Ms. Burnett’s name undoubtedly had a great deal to do with the play’s success in New York. Hers are big shoes to fill, but Andrea Catlin, who has starred in multiple Theatre Harrisburg productions, including the similar Noises Off (which unlike this play didn’t suffer from bad jokes about a somewhat provincial city…ouch), did a remarkable job with this difficult role. Catlin was a wild and convincing combination of petulant and patrician, starring actress and jilted wife — winning her way into the hearts of the Harrisburg audience, which on the Friday evening I attended packed the Sunoco Performance Theater. As George, the bumbling, well-intentioned but erring husband who has never been as talented as his wife, but shares her dedication to bringing live theatre to the ‘masses,’ Mike Knarr — a well-known figure on Harrisburg stages — entertained the crowd throughout but especially in Act II by maintaining his character’s sloppy drunk persona for nearly the entire act — quite a feat.

Among the supporting cast, Shari Stevens as Rosilind, returning to the stage after a hiatus at home with her daughter, was a visual and auditory delight, particularly in Act II, scene ii, when her character fights a losing battle to keep the production within the production from falling apart at the seams. Her increasingly frantic recitation of the opening lines of Private Lives (the show the Hays are delivering for their matinee within the show) while she waits for her inebriated father to appear opposite her, and her comic portrayal of the ad-libbing Rosilind resorts to under the circumstances — as ‘Daddy’ stumbles drunkenly from one balcony to another in the costume meant for Cyrano de Bergerac — brings the house down.

Although this high point in Act II is matched in energy neither by the prior sixty minutes nor by the concluding scene, this polished cast, directed by David M. Fisher (who has experience with the Metropolitan Repertory Company and has made his mark on theatre in Central PA), held its own and never skipped a beat of this fast-paced book. Furthermore, the new, plush accommodations make the community theatre experience more sophisticated than ever before. At Hurlock Street, all set changes occurred by crew rolling scenery on and off-stage, whereas at Whitaker Center, Scenic Designer Curtis Smith took intelligent advantage of new possibilities to lower backgrounds and scrims to keep the play moving quickly and the eye delighted. And speaking of a treat for the eye, Paul Foltz’s marvelously conceived, almost whimsical 1950’s costumes accentuated the characters’ personality traits and were essential in delivering a truly worthy period piece.

Some of the more pedestrian changes make the theatre-going experience more pleasurable, as well. Never before could one drive to the theatre on a snowy night without dreading the walk to the entrance, regardless of how lucky one got with the parking. Now, it’s a quick elevator ride from the Walnut Street Garage to the Whitaker Center lobby, parking for the evening if one stops at the desk just inside the building for validation is a mere $3.00, and ticket-holders reach their comfortable, spacious seats in a mood conducive to appreciating the play, as opposed to recuperating from the trials of getting there.

Theatre Harrisburg’s executive director, Sam Kuba, points out that "every seat in the theatre is closer to the stage than it would have been at Hurlock," and that "the stage [at Whitaker] is one and a half times the size of the old stage." These improvements have added new life to an old reliable option for the theatre-lover — the one-time Harrisburg Community Theatre now known as Theatre Harrisburg, resident theatre company of Whitaker Center — and inspire at least this theatre-goer to return. Perhaps the Hays’ undying optimism and enthusiasm for live theatre were as infectious in Harrisburg as for their imaginary Buffalo audience, and in that way this play was a highly appropriate pick for Theatre Harrisburg’s first season in its new digs.

Kuba is excited about the upcoming production, Jane Eyre, the Bronte classic adapted for the stage by Christine Calvit, to open February 26 and run through March 5. Here’s an opportunity to come out to see local talent making the most of its elegant new accommodations, and to reintroduce yourself to one of literature’s all time greatest love stories with Bronte’s special feminist twist.

For more information and tickets, contact THE BOX at 214-ARTS. For more information on Theatre Harrisburg, visit their site at www.theatreharrisburg.com, or call 232-5501.