BWW Reviews: Flashes of Drama Illuminate Suburban I DO I DO

A very fine revival of the first two-person Broadway musical opened out in Munster, Indiana, on Sunday night. "I Do! I Do!," the show crafted by the "fanstastick" team of Tom Jomes (book and lyrics) and Harvey Schmidt (music) for stage superstar Mary Martin and film-turned-stage star Robert Preston in 1966 is now in the very capable hands of Heidi Kettenring and Bernie Yvon, two of Chicagoland's very finest performers.

This show, about 50 years of marriage between characters called HE and SHE (we learn their names are Michael and Agnes) is based on the play "The Fourposter," by Jan De Hartog, and it is that very fourposter that dominates the stage of the Theatre at the Center (the lovely, detailed Victorian setting is by Ann N. Davis).  From their wedding day in 1895 to, well, their old age in 1945 (can't get a spoiler out of me!), their bed, like their endless dressing and undressing, is a constant that they, and we, come to know and expect and need and love. 

In less than capable hands, this show can dwindle down into a cute stage conceit--let's watch two audience favorites cavort and sing, and yes, change clothes a lot (usually SHE has to go offstage and change dresses, while HE, hopping up and down to get in and out of pants, is able to hang out onstage a little while longer. A marvelous touch (again, no spoilers) that deftly elevates this conceit into something artfully wonderful takes place toward the end, brilliantly executed. 

But they do cavort! The likeable Bernie Yvon, always a better performer than a singer, seems to don a top hat and twirl a cane all the time in this show (choreographed by Linda Fortunato). Either that, or else it's just his natural effervescence taking over as he has fun showing us what Robert Preston would have been like in this role, had the show been written ten years earlier. The spunkily young Heidi Kettenring, her marvelous Broadway voice in service of some not-so-demanding vocal material written for the aging Martin in her last original Broadway musical role, looks smashing in her wedding gown (designed by Myron Elliott). She brings unexpected fire to the proceedings, during the bumps in the marriage which give arc to the two hour-long acts. 

The music in this show is oddly forgettable, in that the show ran on Broadway for over a year, toured and then became a staple of regional theaters across the country. However, "My Cup Runneth Over" became a big radio hit for Ed Ames, one of the last Broadway songs to do so before "Hair" became such a game changer for the Broadway to airwaves pipeline. It is touchingly and simply performed here by the starring pair, and I heard more than one set of sniffles in the opening night crowd. It's a little jewel of a moment. Two other songs have had at least a little life beyond the show itself, the uptempo "Flaming Agnes" from act one and the ballad "What Is a Woman?" from act two, both sung winningly by Kettenring. 

But aside from these songs, the rest of them vanish as pleasantly as they arrived, fully in service of the story, fully competent, yet unremarkable. Thank goodness for that marital strife, brought on quite well in both staging and dialogue, and reflected in the two songs Agnes sings mentioned above. There is real drama in this particular staging of these sequences (direction by Chuck Gessert), as the two actors dig their teeth into some real conflict and quarrel, no doubt thankful that they are both on stage and neither one is trying to find an armhole in the backstage darkness. 

Somehow, in the midst of all the clothes, the moving about of so many props per person (designed and executed by Libby Fandrei) and the gradual changing of hairstyles, full lives are revealed. When the show begins, on the wedding day, we have no idea who these people are, how they met, why they are marrying, or how they have such a big house to live in! Gradually, we learn that Michael is a romantic pulp fiction writer, and Agnes is a housewife. They bear and raise two (unseen) children, and boy and a girl. He has job difficulty, she, an identity crisis, and they wonder (more than once) if they are still in love. They love others, or do they? There is quite a lot of ground covered, and everyone in the audience has a high likelihood of seeing themselves up there, at some point in the proceedings. That was me, that is me, that might be me, that should have been me. I'm glad that wasn't me. You get the idea. Sometimes, simple really IS best.

The music in Munster is provided by the twin pianos of musical director William A. Underwood and Randy Glancy, doing fine work despite a big distance between them.  All is heard, courtesy of the sound design by Barry G. Funderburg. Lights by Carl Ulaszak light up Kevin Barthel's wigs. 

And I had a good time! Many in the audience no doubt loved it more than I, and if you are in the company of your long-time love, you probably will too. But it's cute, detailed and very, very human, and if it's old-fashioned around The Edges, so be it. Your grandparents were too, and you loved them all the more for it. Have some tea and cookies. You'll feel better. You will! You will! 

Bernie Yvon and Heidi Kettenring star in "I Do! I Do!" at Theatre at the Center, the year-round professional theater located in the Center for Visual and Performing Arts, 1040 Ridge Road in Munster, Indiana, just 35 minutes from downtown Chicago. Parking is free. Performances are Wednesday through Sunday, now until May 23, 2010. For tickets and more information, call the box office at 219-836-3255 or visit www.TheatreAtTheCenter.com.   

Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow

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