"Hatful of Rain" Leaves Muddy Puddle at Vagabonds

SHOW INFORMATION: Through March 30; Fri and Sat at 8PM, Sunday at 2PM.  Tickets are $15 general admission, senior and student discounts available.  Go to www.vagabondplayers.com or call 410-563-9135.

 

◊◊ out of five.  2 hours, 40 minutes, including intermission.  Adult language, situations, gun usage and onstage drug abuse.  

I'm pretty sure A Hatful of Rain caused quite a stir when it opened on Broadway 53 years ago, what with the foul language, an impending extra-marital affair, and, worst of all, the onstage depiction of drug abuse and the unmined territory of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.  Given our times – drugs nearly an acceptable thing in all levels of society, and addicts becoming celebrities for de-toxing in rehab centers nationwide, not to mention more and more reports of war veterans coming home unable to cope with the atrocities they've been made a part of – you'd think the play would be as timeless as the very earnest director's notes (by Steve Yeager) tell us it is.  Well, the ideas in it are timeless, but this production certainly does everything it can to trivialize them and emphasizes the almost quaint presentation of these themes.  For every success in this Vagabond Players presentation, there are failures to obliterate the positive.

It is almost hard to believe that the last production here, Light Up the Sky, an even more dated script, was such a resounding artistic success.  Perhaps the quaint phrasing and times of yore feel of that show worked because it is a comedy (let's face it, I Love Lucy will be funny until doomsday), where as Hatful of Rain is a serious drama.  Is comedy always funny, while drama gets weakened as times get tougher and we become more numb to what we see?  That may be part of it, but that cast and director threw themselves into the special rhythm and style of that period of acting; here, the Hatful of Rain cast and director play it very straight and realistic, clearly ignoring the heightened, almost melodramatic fervor of the script.  (I mean the lines are unintentionally funny in and of themselves; four-fifths of them include a character's name repeated each time.  That main character's name is Polo, and is insistently yelled out throughout the play, and I had to fight the urge to yell back, "Marco!")  The result is several unexpected laughs, even though most are earned, and an evening of theatre that plays like one very long episode of Dragnet mixed with Perry Mason.  One has to wonder if the company was fully prepared for the laughter that greeted several key dramatic moments, or the cacophony of snores from several less polite audience members.  Personally, I hope they couldn't hear it, for they are a likeable, if largely ineffective, group.

I think it says a lot for both cast and actor that one of the biggest impressions made on opening night was made by the young actress who played Putski, Lauren Lakis.  Ms. Lakis, dressed in fancy underwear and a full length fur, stumbles around the set drunk and high, blurting out lines that vacillate between being profound and nonsense.  At one point she spends about five minutes seated in a chair passed out, facing away from us.  With that one image, plus her startling awakening and departure, the real power of the play comes through.  She leaves a pitiable impression made more so by the on-her-sleeve emotion, and makes us aware of the magnitude of the problem.  Yeager's sharp direction of that image also shows what could have been, making the other two hours plus all the more difficult to stand.

Three actors have been given the unenviable task of playing the tough guys – the drug pushers of Manhattan.  I say it is an unenviable position because the script doesn't help – they all have cute nicknames: Mother, Chuch and Apples, none of which are explained, and have lines about owing money and deadlines and what'll happen if they don't pay up, etc., each and every one a cliché.  The direction works against them as well.  Again, they play it completely straight, blissfully unaware of how corny they sound, and how ill-prepared they are to act in a style long forgotten, but essential in making this dialogue work.  To be completely fair, the actor playing Mother, Jeffrey Hunter, has apparently just recently joined the cast, though as an African-American actor, one wonders if Mr. Hunter is actually as "excited" as his biography says he is now that he realizes he is playing a sad stereotype, dark glasses, dark trench coat and all.  Then there is the too cool for school portrayal of Apples by Alexander Hill, who smirks his way through each scene as though he is trying desperately not to laugh at the inanity of it all himself.  Maybe he realizes that he looks out of place in his costume (designed by Ann Mainolfi) of a cotton beige blazer and collarless black t-shirt.  Who knew Crockett and Tubbs worked 50's Manhattan before 80's Miami Vice?  Finally, as Chuch, a role that I'm guessing is meant to be the third color in this rainbow of villainy, is Steve Lichtenstein, trying desperately to deliver a somber performance dressed up in a bad Hispanic accent, which plays somewhere between the Taco Bell dog and Pepe Le Pew.  Unfortunately, it is pretty apparent that he thinks he is working his role for all its worth – I give him credit for being so confident – but he is actually a study in wooden acting.  His unintentionally funny delivery is perhaps better suited for his commercial work for Mattress Warehouse (check out his biography; I'm not kidding).

The larger roles are, thankfully, better acted (though keep in mind the relativity of that "better").  As the father of the two main sons, Tony Colavito does a decent job portraying the conflict this father has between his favorite son and the son he thinks he understands.  Mr. Colavito plays the defeated angle very well (though he was much better as the similarly beleaguered father in Broadway Bound last year at FPCT).  Where he falls short is in what would seem to be a directorial issue, because it plagues each leading performance.  That is he (and his co-stars) reach a certain level of intensity then maintain it, never ebbing or increasing.  That makes for a long play when you are watching four actors playing in monotone.

Todd Krickler, who is amassing quite a local theatre resume these days, does a pretty decent job as Polo, the good guy brother who is misread and underappreciated by his father.  A kind of big guy, his lumbering presence works both to endear us to him and to fear his physicality when called upon for strength or protection. Krickler does well with his thick Hell's Kitchen accent, though he is not entirely believable as a drunk.  Polo is secretly in love with his brother's pregnant wife, Celia, played by Gina Dipeppe.  Ms. Dipeppe does particularly well with the minute details of the physicality of her character – we never forget that she is pregnant or exhausted or constantly worried.  And her accent is also thick and unwavering, but again, like her co-stars, once she hits a certain level, she goes no further, nor does she bring it down, and with that accent she literally spends two thirds of the play in a bland, whiny monotone at an annoying pitch.  Again, this not entirely the actress's fault – where was the director?  (Her costume is 1980's vintage as well, including stylish flats and a tied in the back frock/pregnancy blouse.)  Unfortunately, at the moment of climax in the play, Ms. Dipeppe got a hearty chuckle instead of a grieving silence when she makes the tough decision to call the police to turn in her husband so that he can get the help he needs.  And that is entirely not her fault.  Finally, Bobby DeAngelo as Johhny Pope, junkie, does fine dramatic work in the details of his performance – the subtle cranking up of the oncoming nosedive he is about to hit unless he gets more morphine, hands shaking, voice cracking, posture changing.  But you can also guess where he falters – his line delivery.  Yup, once he hits a certain level, that's it, no more, no less.

The best aspect of this production is the execution of minute, specific details in both performance (things like using potholders carefully to bring a hot pot to the table, the un-lidding of beer bottle caps, washing out stockings or testing an iron's heat with a little spit on the finger) and design (Tony Colavito designed the set to include a "linoleum" floor that shows very specific wear spots in front of the stove, sink and front door, among other things).  That attention to detail pretty much saves this from being entirely boring.  So, when looking over director Steve Yeager's credits, I was not surprised to find several film credits, for he has directed this like a film in many ways, with dozens of things happening that would look great in a close up, but fail miserably from a distant view.  Erik Morra's lighting is rather bizarre, but does fit the filmic style of this production, with areas of the stage being lit brightly only when characters are in them.  For example, when a character moves into the hall, the hall light comes up full until the character disappears.  It is more startling and even less necessary when there is a scene at the dining table, brightly lit while the rest of the apartment is dimly lit, only to brighten the very second a character moves from the table.  As staged, it is easy to tell where our focus should be, but the lighting is, frankly, annoying.  You'd think the apartment was stocked with motion sensors that tell the lamps when to turn on and off.  The sound goes uncredited, but also seems to fit Yeager's cinematic vision, what with end of act music (I'm almost certain it comes from the film soundtrack, but I could be wrong) meant, I'm sure to heighten the mood, but instead being reminiscent of old time soap opera organ music.

Given that the vast majority of the play is essentially a series of two person scenes, broken up by shorter group scenes, the "close up" style makes sense on paper.  Were this a film remake of the classic film, this Hatful of Rain might have a nostalgic heart and be interesting.  But as it stands, the director and his uneven cast seem to have forgotten they are reviving a play, not making a movie.

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