Richard Kline and Dana Powers Acheson in "Don't Talk to the Actors."

DON’T TALK TO THE ACTORS

Tom Dudzick’s new play, Don’t Talk to the Actors, was highly anticipated for many reasons. Since he wrote Over the Tavern, his comic yet touching celebration of life growing up in an apartment above the family business on Buffalo’s Polish east side, Dudzick has become the Polish Neil Simon. He made an icon of tyrannical yet loving Sister Clarissa, the mythical (and fictional) nun who instructed generations of Buffalonians in penmanship and Catholic morality. He confirmed Chef’s restaurant as a tourist Mecca—equal, in the hearts of the locals, with Niagara Falls. He understands our city’s affection for its ethnic working-class histories, and people of many backgrounds have seen themselves and their own families in his work.

In Don’t Talk to the Actors, Dudzick returns to semi-autobiographical territory. This time we meet Jerry, a young and innocent playwright from Buffalo who, in the company of his equally young and innocent fiancée, makes his first trip to New York City, where his own autobiographical play is being produced on Broadway. Jerry is to learn that the rest of the world is not as “nice” as Buffalo, at least not on the surface.

Will Jerry’s innocence and dreams be shattered, or will goodness prevail?

Get real. This is a Tom Dudzick play. Goodness will prevail.

This production is important for Studio Arena, where artistic director Kathleen Gaffney has begun her first solo season. She has selected the plays. She has assembled the artistic teams. Dudzick’s reinforcing joke fest is intended to jumpstart a season that includes an edgy new musical, a recent A.R. Gurney play, a recent British drama, the retelling of a classic American novel and a musical revue. Dudzick gets us off to a happy start with a play that is solid and engaging, if not perfect in this, its very first outing.

With Don’t Talk to the Actors, Gaffney is quite clearly striving to restore Studio Arena to its glory days without alienating its current audience. The play is a light confection, sweetened with abundant local references and devised to delight. At the same time, it is a world premiere, populated with name talent. In that respect, we are seeing shades of Neal Du Brock, the legendary Studio Arena artistic director, who, throughout the 1960s and ’70s imbued the theater with an undercurrent of excitement, whether he was featuring the world premiere of a challenging Edward Albee play, or featuring Betsy Palmer in his own Countess Dracula.

Don’t Talk to the Actors has been given a first rate production, directed by Thomas Caruso with Denny Dillon, Richard Kline and Lewis J. Stadlen in featured roles; set by Troy Hourie and costumes by Donna McCarthy.

Peter Stadlen (the real life son of Lewis) plays Jerry, the neophyte playwright from Buffalo. In “a snow related miracle that could only happen in Buffalo,” he has been discovered when a Broadway producer is stranded in our city during a blizzard and decides to take in a community theater production. As the play begins, Jerry, accompanied by his girlfriend, Arlene, enters the rehearsal hall, anticipating an environment of selfless professionalism. Oh boy, is he in for a surprise.

The director, a man of greater experience played by the older Stadlen, warns young Jerry, “Don’t talk to the actors.” The advice goes unheeded.

In no time at all, Curt Logan, a 1980s television star (who still dresses the part) has commandeered the production and the author’s girlfriend. It seems that old Curt is only taking a Broadway gig as a showcase for a possible television gig. Bea Pomeroy, the actress hired to play Jerry’s sainted mother, turns out to be Curt’s bawdy television wife; she’s way out of her comfort zone in a domestic drama, and wants to endear herself to the audience by clowning around with risqué ad-libbing.

The strength of the production lies in the remarkable comic talent of the senior Stadlen as Mike, the director; Richard Kline as Curt Logan; and the irrepressible Denny Dillon as Bea. Dudzick’s script supplies the comic nails, and these seasoned pros whack each one down with side-splitting perfection.

Stadlen, for instance, can earn a laugh with a simple announcement like “Nine-ninety-five for two eggs, toast and coffee.” His inflections are infectiously funny as he points out the absurdity in life’s most mundane situations. He can wrest laughs with sardonic observations about the lunacy of other characters, or with a Jackie Gleason spit take. (He executes one to perfection in Act II.)

Kline is best known for playing sleazy Larry Dallas on Three’s Company, the low-brow television comedy of the late 1970s and early ’80s that thrived on the comic genius of a cast that also boasted the late John Ritter, Audra Lindley and Norman Fell. In a performance that lacks any nuance, he brings down the house by enacting the same scene twice to demonstrate how Jerry’s play can be enhanced through “nuance.” He even gets a laugh for a groin gag—it may be low physical comedy, but Kline, a master of his craft, elevates it to high art.

Denny Dillon is assuredly one of the most underrated comic talents of her generation. Unforgettable for her assorted characters on Saturday Night Live, or for her Tony-nominated turn in Broadway’s My One and Only, her entrance in Don’t Talk to the Actors seems to say, “Now this is a party!” She creates hilarity from unbridled stand-up shtick, from incredulous repetitions of lines from the play within the play, or by simply conceding the regrettable truth. Hear her handle variations on the latter when she hands out toiletries as first rehearsal gifts or when she sadly agrees with Curt’s admission that he’s a first class Hollywood shmuck. She literally stops the show with her ribald description of how “slow and steady,” their generous producer Arthur is. Dillon’s is the most deliciously written role in the show and she doesn’t waste an instant of it.

The younger cast members do well just to keep up.

Peter Stadlen is endearing and surprisingly real as the beleaguered playwright, Jerry Przpezniak. The young actor has been entrusted with the heart and soul of the play, for Jerry’s sincerity comes closest to Over the Tavern territory, and the audience dearly does not want to believe that sincerity and goodness are character flaws. Stadlen manages to be a nice guy without being a total schlemiel. This takes some doing when he forgives the fiancée who tries to run off with the sleazy television star she idolizes. Dudzick hands Stadlen the perfect nice guy revenge, when, in the moment of forgiveness, he allows Jerry to ask the girl, “Am I going to have to worry? I mean, there’s a lot of old men in this city!” Thus he insults both fiancée and TV star without ever ceasing to be “nice.”

As Arlene, the fiancée, Dana Powers Acheson, too, proves that she’s got the comic chops to keep up with this crew. Her scenes with Kline are especially memorable, for if he is landing the jokes, she’s setting them up. She is also skilled at physical comedy. She faints like a 1940s ingénue, and the moment in which she releases the brakes to make out with the TV star she adores is hilarious.

Polly Lee gives a solid performance as the easily distressed British stage manager. She deftly barks her way through a succession of inconvenient phone calls, and earns a big guffaw with the old line, “Is it something I said?”

All that being said, one wonders about the play’s future potential. Over the Tavern played all over the country. To liken Dudzick to Neil Simon is a great compliment, but it also signals that this is an old-fashioned kind of play, the sort New York seldom embraces any more. Still, the opportunity to laugh and laugh is very enjoyable, indeed, and as this is the very first production of Don’t Talk to the Actors, Dudzick is only now getting to see how his script actually plays. It is likely that he will want to speed things along in Act I, which takes too long to ignite with its unnecessarily detailed exposition. He has also been adjusting the crowd-pleasing Buffalo references, with a mind to future productions. A joke that in the script read, “You’re from Buffalo? What you’re not from normal parents?” which inspired groans in the Buffalo preview audience, became a joke about spending a week in Buffalo one night.” Dudzick is still tinkering and refining, and he has the experience of a long career of comedy writing to help him along.

Even as it is right now, however, Don’t Talk to the Actors is a pleasure. Thomas Caruso’s production is delightful and his talented cast is marvelous.

Leah Russo and Vincent O'Neill in ICTC's "The School for Scandal."

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

Opportunities to see Restoration comedy are relatively rare, but Ireland gave us both Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan and so we have been treated to productions of their plays by the Irish Classical Theatre Company. The School for Scandal, currently featured on the Andrews Theatre stage, is a handsome production with a wonderful cast headed by Vincent O’Neill as Sir Peter Teazle, with Leah Russo as Lady Teazle, Neal Moeller as Charles Surface and Tim Klein as his evil brother, Joseph.

While the verbose play was not yet firing all its pistons in perfect order for the opening, there was plenty to delight the eye, the ear and the funny bone.

The plot is impossibly (and pleasingly) convoluted, but briefly, Sir Peter has married a young wife from the country and is taken aback when she takes to life in the big bad city with such alacrity. Lady Teazle has become a woman of fashion, meaning she is spendthrift and has gotten herself in with a bad crowd. Her ladyship spends much of her free time with a group of friends headed by Lady Sneerwell, played by Josephine Hogan, a veritable den of vipers and gossip mongers, in short, a school for scandal.

To say that the production, directed by Derek Campbell, uses the Andrews Theatres arena stage inelegantly, is not to say that all is lost. The director would obviously be happier using a classical proscenium stage. As with his static Sons of Ulster…, he has lopped off a chunk of stage and audience. The effect is like seeing the play in a borrowed space, which is a shame, for the production elements are otherwise excellent. While an arena, with the audience on all sides, is difficult to use, the rewards can be substantial in terms of swift and dynamic playing. This might have lent itself to the presentational Restoration style quite admirably.

Subplots are the order of the day with Restoration comedy, and Sheridan artfully interweaves his in this play. The complications leading up to the inopportune discovery of Lady Teazle behind the screen, arguably the most famous scene in all of Restoration comedy, are tightly interconnected and amusingly motivated. It is vital to populate the characters with strong actors, and this production has those in abundance.

Neal Moeller deserves particular praise in the role of Charles. He charismatically maneuvers the comedy, creating a man of nonchalant charm worthy of Brian Bedford. He is strong in his every scene.

Leah Russo’s Lady Teazle is effervescently appealing, even as she perplexes her husband with her naïve adherence to the most superficial values imaginable.

Robert Rutland gives an admirable performance as Sir Oliver O’Neill, the much abused rich uncle of Charles and Joseph. Tim Klein is wonderful as duplicitous Joseph Surface, the man we all love to hate.

I found Todd Benzin delightful as Lady Sneerwell’s sidekick Snake and as Moses, the moneylender who helps Sir Oliver spy on his nephews. He plays each role with a slight air of detachment that lends them a wonderfully wry undercurrent of irony.

Kurt Guba as Sir Benjamin Backbite and Peter Palmisano as Crabtree throw themselves into their roles full throttle. They dangerously walk the line between fops and fags, however, a line which, for this gay critic, made the performances wander between the comic and the offensive. I found them entirely engaging in Act II, however, when they had more fully controlled and motivated their performance and when I had entirely forgiven them because of their undeniable craft as actors. Besides, they wear great wigs, courtesy of Susan Drozd (who has done exceedingly clever and witty work with all of the wigs). The handsome looking costumes are by Tessa Lew. The sets are by Craig Chapman, who manages the shifting locations with skill.

Anne Roaldi is sweet and lovely as Maria; Josephine Hogan, who almost always excels in substantial supporting roles, is appropriately and entertainingly nasty as icky Lady Sneerwell. Among the scandal mongers, Kelli Bocock-Natale stands alone with her brilliant performance as Mrs. Candour, a role last played in Buffalo (and unforgettably too) by the legendary Betty Lutes DeMunn. Bocock-Natale is splendidly funny as a woman addicted to unhappy news about others. Vincent O’Neill is a steady and lovable presence as Sir Peter, a husband who proves that nice guys need not finish last.

ALTAR BOYZ

There’s one joke in Altar Boyz. What if there were a Catholic boy band with absolutely no sense of irony about itself?

That’s the only joke they need to make this silly revue irresistible.

Directed by Lisa Ludwig with choreography by Michael J. Walline and musical direction by Jason Bravo, the production sounds, looks and moves perfectly. Add to the mix a wonderful cast with Pachal Frisina III as Matthew, Marc Sacco as Mark, Brendan Cataldo as Luke and Angel Rosario as Juan. Just to add a daft dimension to this Matthew, Mark, Luke and Juan theme, Louis Colaiacovo plays Abraham—the only Jewish member of the group, who is indispensable, because he writes their material.

The show is far more risqué than I recalled from the New York production, an element from which it benefits. Walline’s choreography is endlessly inventive in its clichéd lack of invention. The ensemble is uniformly good, though I would single out Marc Sacco, who is hilarious perfection as a boy infatuated with the lead singer. His big moment is “coming out” to the audience in song—as a Catholic.

There is a touch of audience participation. Only women need fear, and it is handled quite humanely, as far as those things go.

MusicalFare has given Altar Boyz an excellent production, and one that amplifies both its musical virtues and its devilish comedy.