REVIEW: Lend Me A Tenor Delivers Laugh-Out-Loud Performances
Photos by John Shea
“this group has built a fun locomotive that just keeps chugging along, picking up laughs at every station.”
Lend Me a Tenor is the earliest and most successful comedy by the prolific Ken Ludwig. It won a Tony, an Olivier and, most importantly, community theatres and their audiences love it. The Ghent Playhouse is offering a very fine example of why the period comedy still satisfies 40 years after it was written.
Director Ed Dignum deserves great credit for assembling a game cast of eager farceurs and driving their performances to the heights and lows required of this mistaken identity, door-slamming and eye-popping play. If there is a garbled line, all will be forgiven because this group has built a fun locomotive that just keeps chugging along, picking up laughs at every station.
It’s Cleveland, 1934 and as the play opens, Max (a wonderful Patrick Heffernan) has just returned from the train station unable to pick up the opera star Tito Merelli (impressive and imposing Brian Edward) who has been contracted for a single performance of “Pagliacci” that evening because…he is nowhere to be found.
Is he drunk? Did he get on the train? What if he doesn’t show up? Rehearsal starts in ten minutes. Max has to level with his reluctant fiancée Maggie (the lovely Lara Denmark) and worse, her father Saunders (Mark Wilson in high dudgeon) who manages the hotel and the opera company. The play starts on a very high note and I have some discomfort with Ludwig’s construction but the cast does what they need to do; everyone shows up strong and introduces themselves and the situation clearly with appropriate intensity.
Tito shows up, out of sorts, with his fiery, jealous wife Maria (Wanda Libardi) and begs off rehearsal. Also present is the grande dame of society (dressed like the Chrysler building someone cracks) Julia (irreplaceable GPH pro Meg Dooley), the aspiring star Diana (Amanda Boyd, all striving libido and ambition) and even the bellhop of Brian Yorck has very strong needs.
A couple of things I love about this play and this production are that the characters are all exceptionally strong and have big personalities with big desires. I also love that all this opera buffa is taking place in Cleveland. It is not unlike visiting the tiny town of Ghent and finding an enthusiastic production and performance in the charming playhouse in its 50th year of producing gems like this in central Columbia County.
What is odd about the play is the big payoff “Pagliacci” performance where Max steps in for Tito (spoiler alert!) takes place during intermission and we see none of it. Everyone is fooled with the two donning clown white makeup (switched from the original “Otello” blackface, good choice) and the women throwing themselves on the opera stars.
Heffernan and Edwards have a terrific master class in the first act where they shake their bodies loose. Heffernan and Denmark make a most appealing couple as they get wilder as the play goes on. Mark Wilson is hysterical as he blows his gasket and spits his fruit.
Special mention must be made of the costumes designed by Samantha Landy which are beautiful across the board with a couple of knockout pieces; Maggie’s violet dress in Act II was stunning!
Everyone gets more than their fair share of laughs and the evening flies by with just enough pace. A very pleasant, laugh out loud comedy to warm the soul on a frigid winter’s eve.
Lend Me a Tenor plays through 2/16 at The Ghent Playhouse. Tickets: www.ghentplayhouse.org
