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MANOA Valley Theatre's superb staging of Alfred Uhry's "The Last Night Of Ballyhoo" neatly adds visuals to a story seen as readers theater at Army Community Theatre 14 months ago. MVT’s ‘Ballyhoo’
must-see theaterBy John Berger
Special to the Star-Bulletin"Ballyhoo" was delightful as "theater of the mind" at ACT. Director Betty Burdick and an even stronger cast now make it a must-see for Honolulu theater fans.
Richard Pellett (Adolph Freitag) is the one veteran of the ACT show cast by Burdick for MVT. He delivers a brilliant reprise of his performance. Give Pellett a character as sharply drawn and well written as Adolph Freitag and he's pretty much worth the price of admission in his own right. Pellett got laughs last night in all the right places, sometimes with only a slight change of expression.
The Last Night of Ballyhoo: At Manoa Valley Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays through Jan. 28. Tickets $22. Call 988-6131.
"Ballyhoo" isn't all comic farce and Pellett plays that side of it well too. An important scene is a confrontation between Adolph and his obnoxious widowed sister, Boo Levy (Shelagh Profit). Pellett and Profit play it beautifully.
Profit reigns as a relentlessly pushy woman who harries and belittles both her ditsy daughter, Lala (Jennifer Vo), and her widowed sister-in-law, Reba Freitag (Sylvia Hormann-Alper).
Vo is first simply charming as the vulnerable Lala then breaks out with exaggerated comic facets of the role as well. Hormann-Alper is excellent in a great role.
The cast and Burdick's direction makes for a outstanding staging of a show that smoothly combines drama, comedy, farce and acid-etched social commentary. The story takes place in Atlanta in 1939. The characters are members of Atlanta's Jewish elite for whom Christmas decorating and the world premiere of "Gone With The Wind" are more important than what Hitler is doing in Europe. The women in the Freitag house argue over whether a "Jewish Christmas tree" should be topped by a star and the social event of the season is a debutante ball on the titular last night of Ballyhoo.
Uhry addresses a fascinating assortment of social issues through the character of Joe Farkas (Russell Motter), one of Adolph's most promising employees. Lala makes a play for Joe but he hits it off with her cousin Sunny (Zenia Zambrano), Reba's daughter, who attends a prestigious eastern collage. Joe's budding relationship with Sunny raises several problems.
The Freitags and Levys came to America from Germany several generations ago. Joe is only two generations from the "old country" and is defined by Atlanta's Jewish social set as "the other kind" of Jew with roots "east of the Elbe (river)." Joe, a "Nu Yawka," is an observant Jew and proud of it, while the Freitags and Levys know next to nothing about Judaism, couldn't care less about it, and live in a social milieu in which, as one character puts it, "They wish they could all kiss their elbows and become Episcopalians." They also routinely use anti-Semite slurs when speaking of "the other kind."
The Freitags and Levys belong to the Standard, a country club which doesn't admit "the other kind." Lala's beau, Peachy Weil (Braddoc DeCaires), suggests that Joe might be more comfortable at the Progressive, a club for "the other kind," but assures him that since he's attending Ballyhoo as a guest of Adolph Freitag everybody at the Standard will be nice to him.
Motter plays Joe with straight earnestness. The off-putting ambience DeCaires puts into his role works quite well too.
It isn't laugh-a-minute comedy but MVT's "Ballyhoo" is excellent theater from start to finish.
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