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| Kendra Kassebaum and Peter Saide in I Do, I Do (Tracy Martin) |
I Do, I Do
Village Theatre
Issaquah: through February 24, 2019 Everett: March 1-24,
2019
The little operetta, I
Do, I Do, is not done very often, so I anticipated it a treat to be able to
see an almost-lost musical such as this on stage. Village Theatre is mounting
this show with two solid performers: local firebrand, Kendra Kassebaum, and imported leading-man, Peter Saide. Saide is lovely in the role, as a good singer, an
adept dancer to director/choreographer Michael
Arnold’s old-timey dances, and provides solid acting in the range of
emotions the character goes through. (I just still wonder if there was a need
to bring in talent with all the available men here who might easily do the
role.)
I Do, I Do is
pretty formulaic and there is almost nothing surprising about it. You can guess
it’s the story, through song, of the life of a marriage. This one happens to
begin, per the story it was built on, in 1895 and extend to 1945. The play, The Fourposter, by Jan de Hartog, was
the genesis of the musical.
The writers of The
Fantasticks, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, took on this play and wrote a
bucket of songs with few intermediate words of dialogue. Since it was a
two-hander with a unit set (translation: only two actors on one set that
doesn’t change), it was cheap to present and easy to make production cost
investments back.
Most of the songs are not ones that travelled into the
public sphere of song hits, though they’re generally pleasing and easy to
understand musically. So, you’re not likely to know them beforehand.
The actors are wonderful and well-cast. They make it a
pleasant evening.
The biggest problem is with the production choices, which is
a surprise, since usually, Village does top-notch technical work. And it’s not
at all “shoddy” – in fact, it’s fussy! Meticulous and completely overbuilt.
This is a one set show that calls for simple and clean bedroom items. What
they’ve chosen to do is build an enormous wardrobe, with fold out bed, lots of
attached closets and additional cubbies on the side.
Then the whole dang set MOVES. It “faces” toward one married
partner and then turns to “face” the other. There’s lots of opening of cubbies
to reveal a dining room table or a desk. Sure, there’s a need for storing
quick-change costuming, but the actors are constantly scrambling to open or
close doors. Frankly, I think it takes away from both the story and the actors’
ability to relate to each other.
The musical itself seems not to have been dramaturgically
double-checked: how far apart are the two children? Two years? Or four? At one
point, the children are two years apart and another, the boy is 16 and the girl
just got her first bra (so 11?).
More fussiness comes with the “flying in” of clotheslines
hung with clothing, where once was cute, but several times is device overkill.
We might try guessing why all this “stuff” goes on in a simple musical – maybe
Arnold and crew didn’t trust the audience to be satisfied with something simple
and straightforward. Maybe they felt they had to “dramatize” it. I can promise
that it really didn’t help the production.
Here, the production presents two baby carriages on stage
with two infants even though years have passed between births. And where are
the hints of the 1920s clothing styles or 1940s? While there are perfectly
serviceable pregnancy bump changes, there’s no cognizance of changes of actual
history.
There is a production guide that makes some good comments on
some of the anachronisms in an old show that people might have some
difficulties with from a 2019 viewpoint:
It doesn’t mention the most offensive lyric, at least from
my point of view: In the song, What Is A
Woman, the lyric is, “To be a woman, Means being lonely. That's why a woman
is only, Alive when in love.” It’s very hard to forgive those lyrics – but
again, it’s an old show, written by men. Kassebaum does her very best to put
over the song because she’s a terrific performer.
If you’re curious about this musical or you love Kassebaum
(like I do) and just want more chance to hear her sing, then by all means give
it a whirl.
For more information, go to www.villagetheatre.org
or call 425-392-2202.
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