Review: LEND ME A TENOR THE MUSICAL Runs Riotous at Fountain Hills Theater

Fountain Hills Theater has wrapped up its 29th Season with a summertime delight ~ LEND ME A TENOR, THE MUSICAL ~ proving definitively that cool community theater is the best antidote for Arizona's triple digit heat.

The musical adaptation by Peter Sham (book and lyrics) and Brad Carroll (music) of Ken Ludwig's 1989 Tony-nominated comedy is a madcap affair of love and empowerment that, under the clever and crafty direction of Peter J. Hill and with an exceptionally engaging cast, left me laughing and inspired.

The premise of the play is pure Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will! And so it does for Saunders (Roy Hunt), the General Manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera, whose turnaround strategy for the financially failing company hinges on the appearance of Il Stupendo, the world-renowned opera star Tito Merelli (Alex Gonzalez), in Pagliacci. What should be a night of celebration turns to unadulterated comic turmoil when Merelli is incapacitated and deemed dead and, in a stupendous act of desperation, Saunders entreats, of all souls, his introverted and bumbling assistant, Max Garber (Michael Stewart) to assume the role.

Thereupon, a tightly coiled comedy of errors and impersonations unwinds and entangles a cast of hilarious characters including: Maria, Tito's temperamental wife (quite convincingly played by Amy Powers); Diana, the diva who envisions an evening with Tito as her springboard to fame and fortuna (Janine Smith, who stops the show with a dazzling rendition of May I Have A Moment?); and Maggie (Jenny Harrington), Max's on and off girl friend who has a crush on Tito.

Hill, whose craftiness and versatility extend, like a jack of all trades, to set design has honored the creative intentions of the playwright by attending to the technical demands of the play ~ specifically, the crucial doors of the split set, which must be slammed with conviction and not shake and which render punctuation and rhythm to the plot.

Within these frames, Hill has directed a number of exhilarating moments. One such notable moment is a tenderly synchronized scene within which, in two separate rooms, a young Tito (Griffin Siroky) and Maria (Allyson Igielski) and the older couple croon Facciamo L'amor ("Let's Make Love").

There's more than a cleverly written musical here. It's worth noting that Ludwig, on the 25th Anniversary of LEND ME A TENOR, proclaimed that the story is about "having something inside yourself that other people can't see, that you know you have potential, you know you've got something to say to the world." Max epitomizes the flower that finally blooms; once he sings, his shyness fades and, as Wilbur notes, his greatness emerges. Certainly a message worth remembering!

The ensemble opens the musical with Vesti la giubba, Pagliacci's famous aria. The lines read Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina. (Put on your costume, powder your face.) La gente paga, e rider vuole qua. (The people pay to be here, and they want to laugh.) At show's end Fountain Hills Theater's audience gets more than its money's worth.

The company will continue its tradition of entertaining community theatre when it opens its grand 30th Mainstage Season on September 2nd with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Photo credit to Patty Torrilhon

To post a comment, you must register and login.