Tennessee Repertory Theatre closes its 25th anniversary season in upbeat fashion with Big River, Roger Miller's musical based on Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Gentle ballads, cornpone country tunes and foot-stomping gospel numbers are the primary raison d'être for the production, which boasts a strong multiracial cast led by Patrick Waller. He's supported by key members of director Rene Copeland's virtual rep company of familiar locals, including Jeff Boyet, Rona Carter, Henry Haggard, Peter Vann, Samuel Whited and Bobby Wyckoff. Those vets give forth with their typically solid efforts, but it's the newcomers to the Rep stage that enliven the landscape most, with Bakari King, Aleta Myles, Larry Tobias and Carrie Tillis offering colorful characterizations plus vocals that range from delightfully humorous to outright stirring.
Paul Carrol Binkley's musical direction is notable, his seven musicians (including himself on guitar and harmonica) ably capturing the rural spirit of Miller's score, which ranges from the pointedly witty and silly ("Guv'ment," "The Royal Nonesuch," "Arkansas") to the inspirational ("Muddy Water," "River in the Rain," "How Blest We Are," "Free At Last").
William Hauptman's book is a reasonably intelligible adaptation of the Twain novel, providing a folksy, agreeable portrait of young Huck and his appealing sense of adventure. There's also a good dose of the pre-Civil War attitudes that make his river journey with slave friend Jim such a dangerous undertaking.
Act 2 drags a little, and sometimes it takes too long for the next song to propel the action forward. Yet that happens eventually with the assured bounce of a Jew's harp, and the appreciative opening night audience went home happy as clams.
Rocky seas
There's rougher emotional sailing in ACT I's new production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which helps to prove that the Edward Albee classic, getting on toward 50 years old now, might be the most enduring American drama of the 20th century — the work of folks like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams notwithstanding. Even the '60s atmosphere — actual copies of Holiday magazine adorn the coffee table on director Michael Roark's living-room set — can't date the impact of Albee's absurdist take on couples therapy.
The characters of Martha and George — sullen yet combative intellectuals operating at a high level of dysfunction — will gain our attention so long as relationships remain flawed. In their case, they go at it like gangbusters, playing games such as "get the guests" and "hump the hostess," invading everyone's space and doing it with articulate (and admirable) vitriol.
"You've got to have a swine to show you where the truffles are," says George, played by Ed Amatrudo with swagger, swiftness and absolutely engaging disdain. Meanwhile, Melissa Bedinger Hade's Martha gives us a boozy, floozy MILF of appropriately pathetic proportions. (In other words, they're made for each other.) Roark's direction is open and freeing, and when George calls Martha a "satanic bitch," it's the perfect lyrical underscoring.
Matthew Scott Baxter and Starina Johnson ably enact the unsuspecting young couple Nick and Honey, newcomers to the campus scene and sufficiently vulnerable cannon fodder for the oncoming assault by their elders.
At three hours, Virginia Woolf is about as long as Big River. It's not as musical, of course, but it's often more devilishly entertaining. The play will be performed through April 3 at the Darkhorse Theater.
Kiss and tell
Parrish Stanton's One Kiss Cafe, a musical inspired by the Nashville songwriting biz, is currently playing at the Country Music Hall of Fame's Ford Theater. Stanton's tale of young people seduced by the prospect of fame and fortune shows marked improvement over its workshop version of a year ago, and clearly the input of director Ted Swindley has helped clarify the script, which in turn provides Stanton's songs with sharper focus, though the structure is still somewhat lightweight and disjointed.
Co-stars Mike Callahan and Mika Combs are attractive, and at least prove that they can sing in that way that people who come to Music City think they're supposed to sing when they're looking for a deal. Their acting, however, is pretty amateurish, and that also goes for veteran singer-songwriter Karen Wheeler, cast as Tootsie McCoy, the proprietor of the Bluebird-like club where the great debate concerns whether good songs derive from inspiration based on personal experience or strictly from the imagination. For sheer theatricality, local actor David Kinnard offers a shamelessly hammy portrayal of a soulless music publisher.
There are some catchy musical moments here, and the pre-recorded backing tracks produced by Rollie Mains have professional panache. Still, it's hard to know whether this enterprise's occasional positives outweigh its incredibly cornball dialogue and generally weak dramatic execution. As an entertainment add-on, the show has been including solo performances by noted songwriters opening up Act 2. Among that lineup are Roxie Rogers, Rand Bishop, Barbara Cloyd and Pat Luboff.
One Kiss Cafe continues through March 28.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
