Liz Lauren
From left: Josh Krause, Jamal James, Kelsey Brennan, James Ridge and Marcus Truschinski in the American Players Theatre production of "Rough Crossing."
American Players Theatre’s new production, Rough Crossing, is a frothy comedy of errors — a romp through a 1930s romance fraught with misunderstandings and mistaken directions — and it is exactly what we need right now.
The play, which opened July 3 in The Hill outdoor theater, is Tom Stoppard’s playfully witty parody of movie musicals with overly complicated plots and outlandish resolutions. It is also an opportunity for area audiences to see APT favorites doing what they do best. The cast, made up of very familiar faces from APT’s core company, is extraordinary. Each actor seems to revel in filling a role that begins as a comically broad and overwrought stock character, moves on to the edge of ridiculous, and then is saved from himself (and other castmates) when everything miraculously works out. Frequent APT director William Brown brilliantly layers smart physical comedy over an already smart script, resulting in an evening full of double entendres, dramatic reversals, slapstick, word play, and delightful song and dance. To his credit, this is a production that is undoubtedly even more amusing on stage than it was on the page.
Scenic designer Scott Adam Davis creates spare but elegant spaces that perfectly set the mood aboard the “SS Italian Castle,” with only a few railings and a door with a prominent porthole. (For good measure, the luxury liner is fully pictured on the vintage advertisement that hangs in the back of the stage as an adjustable drop.) Through clever use of a balcony and one main playing area, we are ushered into the world of a glamorous ship filled with even more glamorous people, who could only have stepped out of a silly, black-and-white Hollywood comedy.
In this liberal reworking of Ferenc Molnár's The Play at the Castle, Stoppard has put playwrights at the center of his story. Gal (Jamal James) and Turai (James Ridge) are screenwriters who are completely “lost at sea.” Mired in the new script for a musical movie that simply will not hang together, they are resolved to use their four days at sea to completely rewrite the ending of their picture. And the middle. And, well yes, actually the beginning also. Then, of course, comic complications arise.
High on a balcony above the writers’ cabin, the two stars of the film, Natasha and Ivor (Kelsey Brennan and Marcus Truschinski), share a passionate exchange. Once lovers, they enjoy one last romantic night together before he plans to return to his wife and family and she resumes her engagement to Adam, young French composer for this musical. As their amorous parting is overheard by the lovestruck pianist and the movie’s authors, there is a necessary rewriting of reality as well as the script, trying to untie the knot that these lovers have entangled themselves in.
Jim Ridge and Jamal James form an adorable writing duo with opposing temperaments. Ridge is the uptight worrywart whose ever more convoluted script makes for ever more difficult rehearsals with his leading pair. James plays his co-writer, an affable, laid-back bon vivant who is more concerned with his next meal than with sorting out character arcs and motivations that make sense. As a team they are a lovely odd couple, both intent on beating their deadline for the new script and keeping the peace amongst the cast and creative team, forcing the plots forward, no matter how unbelievable they may be.
As the pair of temperamental movie stars, Brennan and Truschinski, likewise could not be better matched. Wearing a frizzy blonde wig with a beautiful ’30s wave, Brennan is the starlet whose recent successes are moving her from dewy-eyed newcomer to diva. Her costar, looking every inch like Errol Flynn or Clark Gable, is a likeable cad. A veteran matinee idol and slightly tarnished heartthrob, Truschinski is alternately charming and reprehensible. Resorting to theatrics in their real lives, both movie stars initially decide to kill themselves with decidedly dull edged cutlery when they fear that their romantic liaison will be revealed. Instead they decide to do something even more difficult (and hilarious) — rehearse the hopelessly nonsensical play. Through numerous accents, precise pantomime, and some key imagined costume pieces, the actors give their tyrannical director a story that is funny in all the wrong places and provides a passable explanation for the inappropriate advances of the previous evening.
David Daniel is the unlikely lynchpin of this wacky tale. As the ship’s porter Dvornichek, who has fudged his resume to gain a position aboard ship, he knows so little of sea life that he is constantly getting lost on the ocean liner and adorably refers to the “chimneys” of the boat as “smoke sticks.” While the porter is seemingly unable to adapt to the lingo of the sea, he compensates by providing the punchline to several running jokes while trying to carry out every order that straight man Jim Ridge issues.
Dvornichek is, in fact, almost physically unable to bring the beleaguered movie maker the cognac he has ordered. Out-butlering Jeeves, he has a preternatural ability to assess the situation as soon as he enters the room and provide whatever the characters and the play needs. From rescuing the heartsick composer from the sea to providing exposition at key points of the play, he out-plots the professional plotters and solves every crisis with aplomb.
Josh Krause plays Adam, the lovestruck and verbally challenged French composer who is afraid that his love with the starlet may have been undermined. Although he has relatively few lines due to a nervous stutter, Krause is brilliantly expressive, through his body language, his facial expressions and through his notes on the piano as he tries to teach the cast one of his original songs.
Rough Crossing is an obvious choice for APT since the company excels at the witty, wordy, British humor that Stoppard provides, but it is also an unusual outing since it is a play with music that requires the entire cast to sing and dance. With simple but extremely effective choreography by Brown, the small cast brings a bit of the classic movie musical to life. Their singing voices are just strong enough to sound effortless, delighting with frothy love songs.
After presenting a Shakespeare-based play full of references to death and the plague, and two contemporary plays that deal with serious themes of racism and man’s tendency toward violence, this is the light-hearted, laughter-filled return to The Hill that many APT fans have been longing for. Gorgeously costumed by Rachel Anne Healy, it is a smart look at silly people making melodramatic messes of their lives, and then depending on a comic butler to solve every problem in only two hours. How wonderful it is to laugh at the comic genius of Brown, the company, and Tom Stoppard in the presence of a live audience, under the stars.
