Posted 8/3/2010 11:00 AM CDT Buzz Bellmont – Chron.com
Texas Repertory Theatre is very wise to open its 2010-11 Theatre Season in the middle of summer instead of waiting until September, when most theatres in town are vying for our attention. Texas Rep’s season six opener, Ken Ludwig’s farce, Moon Over Buffalo, is the perfect opening play to show off the best and brightest of the amazing talent that is present at Texas Rep.
Ken Ludwig’s hilarious, yet marvelously literate farce, is set in Buffalo, NY, in 1953 backstage at the Erlanger Theatre where aging theatre professionals George and Charlotte Hay are producing and starring in their own versions of Noel Coward’s Private Lives and Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac which are running in rep. No need for me to give away the thin and silly storyline. Just go see this hilarious play and discover for yourself its wealth of wit and wonderful humor. If you have never been to Texas Repertory Theatre (one of the best theaters in the Houston area), I can give you twelve reasons that should more than convince you that now would be a great time to experience this wonderful theatre up north.
Number one: Steve Fenley, who stars in the leading role of George Hay, is one of the finest actors in this or any other town. Mr. Fenley is always a joy to watch and this particular role is tailor-made for his enormous skills and talents as a great actor and comic genius. Fenley gave a similarly stellar performance as the ghost of John Barrymore in Paul Rudnick’s hilarious play, I Hate Hamlet, which Texas Rep marvelously produced last season. Fenley, a master when it comes to stage combat also choreographs the many fight scenes in the play, including a swashbuckling spectacle at top of Act I. Perhaps the biggest problem with having one of the best actors in town in the leading role means that everyone else better be just as good as he is if the play is going to work.
Steven Fenley & Lisa Thomas-Morrison
Number two: Lisa Thomas-Morrison, who stars as Charlotte Hay, George Hay’s devoted wife and thespian extraordinaire in George’s acting company, is every bit as dazzling, delightful, and delicious as is Fenley. Thomas-Morrison gives a beautifully detailed and delectable turn full of nuance and subtlety, although the role is written as broad and bold as a Bette Davis or Ida Lupino chestnut and she does capitalize on that to the max as she dives into this amazing character with gusto. Thomas-Morrison is tall, thin, and graceful, but she is every bit as wonderful as was Carol Burnett, for whom this role was written when it premiered on Broadway in 1995. I saw that production and, although Carol Burnett was wonderful to witness onstage, I never believed that she was an over the hill ingénue whose classical roots were deeply embedded in Shakepeare’s rich soil. I totally believed every phrase that Thomas-Morrison melodramatically and dramatically uttered and she is better and funnier in this role than was Carol Burnett.
Number three: Marcy Bannor, a Houston theatre favorite, makes a triumphant return to the stage in a role that Ken Ludwig could very well have written with Bannor in mind. Bannor plays the deaf and overbearing mother of Charlotte Hay, who serves as sort of a fac totem for the failing theatre company. Bannor’s body language is superb, her scratchy, LOUD, and throaty voice is hilarious, and her every move is magnificent. Bravo!
Marcy Bannor & Steve Fenley
Number four: Eva Laporte is wonderful as George’s and Charlotte’s daughter, Rosalind, who arrives upon the scene to introduce her new fiancé to her parents. She has given up the wild and wacky world of showbiz and is ready to settle down for a normal life with a weatherman. Stormy weather predicted!Laporte is gorgeous, big-eyed, sparkling, and perfectly British as she is pulled back into the theatre and has to step into a performance of Private Lives at the last minute and gives one of the most hilarious “theatre nightmare” performances of the year, trying to save a play that has been sabotaged by her drunken father, who has shown up in the wrong play.
Josh Taylor & Eva LaPorte
Number five: Jamie Geiger, as Roz’s new fiancé, is goofy yet gregarious as the nerdy weatherman who is mistaken as the great director Frank Capra, who is supposed to be attending the matinee. Geiger is as versatile and talented an actor as any I have seen.I hope you saw his beautiful acting and glorious singing as Lancelot in Camelot at Brenham’s Unity Theatre in the spring. He also gave two brilliant performances in the last year at Main Street Theater in its award-winning productions of Awake and Sing! and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. What a talent!
Number six: Alex Dorman is hysterically funny as Eileen, one of the Hay’s ensemble performers, with whom George has an indiscretion. Dorman is as gorgeous as the young Audrey Hepburn and her timing is exquisite. She exhibits the same infectious enthusiasm and energy here that she did in Texas Rep’s A Flea in Her Ear last season.
Number seven: Josh Taylor is perfect, sexy, and seductive as Roz’s ex and the other ensemble player in the Hay’s theatre company.I hope you saw him in Main Street Theater’s Driftwood, one of the best new plays of the 2009-2010 season.
Number eight: Glenn Spencer as Richard Maynard, Charlotte’s lawyer and paramour, is handsome and beguiling. He was also superb in Texas Rep’s A Flea in Her Ear, one of the best productions in Texas Rep’s 2009-2010 season.
Number nine: Craig A. Miller has brilliantly directed and cast Moon Over Buffalo.Miller’s forte as a director seems to be farce, slapstick, and any project that requires perfect timing and precision so he is right at home here.Folks, stage direction does not get any better than Miller’s.
Number ten: Tiffani Fuller is one of the best costume designers in town and she does not disappoint with her beautiful and highly detailed costumes for this play.
Number eleven: Travis Horstmann as scenic designer creates a believable backstage area, complete with four entrances and exits which add to the backstage mayhem. His sets of Cyrano de Bergerac at the top of the show and Private Lives toward the end Act II are stylized and superb.
Number twelve: Dawn Krumvieda beautifully lights the entire production, including highly effective theatrical lighting for the two plays within our play. You now have twelve solid reasons to see the best season opener so far this year. Moon Over Buffalo runs through Sunday, August 22nd. 
