Singing in the Rain (Mark Kitaoka) |
Singing in the Rain
Village Theatre
Issaquah: Through December 31, 2016
Everett: January 6-29, 2016
Village Theatre has perfectly cast its tap-happy production
of Singing in the Rain! The entire
ensemble has great energy and many of the roles have just the right actor on
stage for it.
You have seen the movie numerous times. It’s a new
experience on a theater stage, especially when people must perform all the way
through what might have been many takes for the screen version.
The storyline is about the advent of the “talkies” when
silent film suddenly finds itself dead in an instant, once audiences find out
technology is capable of melding voice with picture. Lockwood and Lamont are a
famous silent film duo and the studio has made a love story out of their
relationship, for publicity only. With the advent of The Jazz Singer, they need to make a talkie, but Lina Lamont (the
supremely funny and on-point Jessica
Skerritt) has a terrible, screechy voice and can’t sing or act a lick. What
to do?
Veteran favorites like Bobbi
Kotula, who imbues every one of the several characters with her signature
fun, and Jeff Steitzer, whose
delivery as R.J. Simpson, head of the studio, is comic gold, are on hand. Matt Wolfe, Greg McCormick Allen, and Pamela
Turpin also bolster key moments.
Younger people, veteran ensemble players, who have not yet
had a chance to lead are front and center. John
David Scott plays Don Lockwood in an enchanting, Gene Kelly homage. Mallory King does a great ingénue, like
Debbie Reynolds. Gabriel Corey gets
a chance to show his great comic chops as side-kick Cosmo Brown. Corey’s antics
on Make ‘Em Laugh are on-point and
exhaustingly funny.
If you’re wondering if the iconic song would be diluted…have
no fear! They surely make it rain on stage! Buckets and buckets of rain fall that
Scott has to dance through with an umbrella. Katy Tabb’s solid choreography helps the piece maintain interest,
despite having to be danced only from right to left and left to right – the
limitations of a stage production.
Director Steve
Tomkins knows exactly what he wants and get it. Music directors Tim Symons and Bruce Monroe fielded an orchestra that sounds lush and full of
horns. The costuming by Cynthia Savage
is gorgeous and period-apt. The chorus girl costumes were sometimes absolutely
sumptuous.
A very “easy” scenic design by Bill Forrester with little solid set and lots of flying in
backdrops made scene changes virtually unnoticeable. Lights by Michael Gilliam and sound by Brent Warwick were similarly so well
executed that they just “happened,” like life.
A huge bravo to the technicians, all, behind the movie
shorts that captured the feeling of what would have been on screen so well. The
clunking of actors’ feet, the heartbeats and the sound or lack thereof were all
hysterical in the “talky” snippet.
Overall, this is a fun show that is good for the whole
family. It is a bit on the slow side at 2 ½ hours. But audiences are filling
seats and having a great time.
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