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Bet your bottom
dollar that ‘Annie’
will entertain you
The Broadway musical revival
offers an upbeat holiday treat
"Annie": Continues at Diamond Head Theatre 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 16. Tickets are $10 to $40, with discounts for students, seniors and military. Call 733-0274.
Review by John Berger Choreography, costuming and set design mesh perfectly in Diamond Head Theatre's delightful revival of "Annie." An hour or two of classic Broadway musical escapism is a perfect lift as we try to celebrate the holidays even as the economy crumbles around us. "Annie" would put even Scrooge and the Grinch in a better mood, although it isn't typical Christmas fare.
jberger@starbulletin.comCredit Greg Zane, a homegrown dancer now based in New York, for a brilliant job on choreography. The movements are strongly plotted and interesting to watch, and his performers are sharp and precise in execution.
The creations of Karen G. Wolfe (costumes) and Dawn Oshima (sets) accentuate the show's origins as "Little Orphan Annie," a 1930s cartoon strip.
Director John Rampage and his star, Paige Finch (Annie) in her first Hawaii performance, tap into the natural optimism of the original Little Orphan Annie without taking Finch's portrayal to the point of cloying preciousness. There was a toughness to the original Annie that got lost after being associated with so many precocious preteens who play the role as a Shirley Temple character. Rampage and Finch avoid making that error.
Finch's greatest assets are her voice and her radiant smile. She and Rampage are obviously in accord on when to go for the cuteness and when to pull it back. Her opening-night rendition of "Maybe" had some of the stereotypical nasal quality heard in parodies of the show, but she had it under control in time to make "Tomorrow" the glorious anthem that fans of the show expect.
Rampage also went outside the usual talent pool in casting two other roles. Jaime Bender (Miss Hannigan) becomes a fine comic villain, and Renee Noveck (Grace Farrell) adds poignancy to the role of Oliver Warbucks' executive secretary as she reveals Grace's unrequited feelings without saying a word.
The fact that most of the show's comic content and pop cultural references were over the heads of the opening-night audience suggests that a recap of the story is necessary. The year is 1933, and America is sinking into economic collapse. Annie has been an inmate at the New York Municipal Orphanage since 1922 but has no doubt that her parents are going to return for her. In the meantime she and the other girls are exploited as child labor by the sadistic Hannigan.
Annie escapes long enough to see how bad life is for New York's homeless. She's captured and returned to the orphanage just as Grace Farrell arrives to select an orphan to spend Christmas with her employer, billionaire industrialist Oliver Warbucks.
Warbucks, who hasn't danced in 25 years, is oblivious to the fact that he'd have a willing dancing partner in his loyal secretary.
Warbucks learns that Annie still hopes to find her parents and commits his unlimited resources to finding them. A $50,000 reward attracts hundreds of bogus parents. Two of them -- Hannigan's jailbird brother, Rooster (Michael Hanuna), and his shrill bleach-blond wife, Lily St. Regis (Elizabeth Anne Wenzel) -- have enough inside information to pull off the scam.
Bender's best work comes when she teams up with Rooster and Lily in the villains' "Easy Street" number and its reprise. Hanuna is excellent in the role's song, dance and comedic demands. Wenzel, who was merely adequate in Army Community Theatre's staging of "South Pacific" last spring, is nothing less than stellar here. The three are an excellent team; the garish costumes Wolfe provides them adds another visual component to their performance.
Jennifer Parales' performance as the character identified only as A Star to Be makes a short showcase a memorable moment. Veteran actor Tim Moulson adds "celebrity impersonator" to his resume with his portrayal of President Roosevelt.
Finch is almost upstaged at times by the orphan ensemble -- Kimi Anderson (Kate), Katherine Clifton (Tessie), Kimberly Alana Nip (July), Kristina Thuy Sault (Duffy), Ashley Ramos (Pepper) and Lauren Yoshihiro (Molly). The girls are not particularly convincing when slinging the slang of 1933, but their song and dance on "It's the Hard-Knock Life" and "Fully Dressed Reprise" sell both numbers.
Ensemble work is also the thing in another great number as Keith R. La Bryer, Twan Matthews, Zhan H. Hunt, Andrea Lopes and Nicole Sullivan spoof the era's radio shows in "Fully Dressed."
John Harris brings primarily a bald pate to the role of Warbucks. His stilted delivery is odd but does nothing to suggest Warbucks' power and ruthlessness.
In spite of our economic malaise, "Annie" succeeds in reminding us that we can still bet our bottom dollar that the sun will come up tomorrow. It's a message worth repeating.
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