Review: THE SPITFIRE GRILL at Arizona Broadway Theatre

I'm delighted to once again welcome David Appleford to the pages of BroadwayWorld ~ this time, featuring his distinctive, well-balanced, and intelligent perspective on Arizona Broadway Theatre's current production of THE SPITFIRE GRILL, running through September 5th in ABT's Encore Room. (Approximate running time ~ 2 hours.)

Until his recent retirement, David was a beloved and highly esteemed presence in the performing arts scene, reporting on films and theatre at radio and TV stations around the country for more than thirty-five years and hosting his highly popular website, Valley Screen and Stage. With his keen sense of history and acute understanding of the world of theatre, his perceptive reviews set a standard for all of us.

Here now ~ From the keyboard of the inimitable David Appleford:

When a young, out-of-towner suddenly appears and begins her new job as waitress at The Spitfire Grill, the locals are suspicious.

"Where d'you come from, Percy?" asks Caleb (Darren Friedman).

"Detroit," She lies without skipping a beat.

"Oh, yeah?" responds Caleb. "I had some clients out there once. They didn't sound quite like you." The young girl shrugs it off. "I don't mind coming from somewhere else if that don't suit you," she replies with just a hint of sass.

Based on the 1996 independent film of the same name, THE SPITFIRE GRILL, now playing in a handsome new production at Arizona Broadway Theatre in Peoria until September 5th, tells the story of Perchance 'Percy' Talbot (Greta Perlmutter), a young woman who when we first meet her is about to be released from a Wisconsin prison cell. Having served five years behind bars for a crime yet to be revealed, Percy is now looking for a fresh start away from anyone she used to know. After a lengthy bus ride, the woman finds what she thinks she's looking for in a small, rural hamlet called Gilead, the kind of town where "... the Post Office and Barber Shop are in the General Store, and the only street is Main Street, and it runs by your front door."

The book by James Valcq and Fred Alley follows the same basic structure as writer Lee David Zlotoff's low-budget film: a stranger arrives and sets off a whirlpool of small-town gossip and suspicions. Whether you're familiar with the original source material or not hardly matters. Somehow you just know that by the tale's conclusion there will be redemption, reconciliation, and a willing embracement of all things previously unknown. It's that kind of tale. And those last act reveals are not restricted to the story's central character; before the tale is told, the townsfolk themselves will experience their own emotional rebirth in one unexpected way or another.

In the way the show streamlined several of the film's story lines to work on stage in a live production, director Danny Gorman and associate director Ken Urso have streamlined much of what was seen live on Broadway in 2001 and used their creativity to present the same story just as effectively on a smaller, tighter forum on the stage of ABT's more intimate Encore Room. A prison cell is suggested by steel bars on wheels that surround Percy moments before she's released, while chairs and the choreographed movements of passengers as they negotiate bumps along the road becomes a packed bus ride out into the country.

Plus, with Jacob Nalley's minimalist yet efficient stripped-down scenic design, the town of Gilead and its surrounding area is suggested by a simple backdrop of trees and woods that when coupled with Rebekah Ryan's continually changing lighting design, a change of scene and a difference of location are clearly conveyed. There's also a back-screen projection that displays a change of seasons throughout, and it's quite magnificent. Winter is a white bleached spectacle of falling snow, nighttime can be a full moon that shines like a spotlight over the Gilead woods, and an early morning sunrise where the glowing, glorious warmth of the sun's far-reaching rays literally bathes the town and its surrounding, mountainous terrain in a gorgeous, comforting, golden hue.

Frankly, the '96 film was mediocre. Pleasant, but little more. It scored a huge success at the Sundance Film Festival, but as any movie-buff will tell you, festival crowds are not the same as mainstream audiences. When the film was given a general release, critics and most of the American public were left unimpressed. Even if the setup of a troubled young stranger with a secret was a good beginning, something was ultimately left wanting in the story's overall telling. But writers Valcq and Alley felt they knew the missing ingredient from the grill's big screen menu: a musical score. And they were right.

By adjusting the downbeat, melodramatic ending of the film to something considerably more upbeat and positive, and by adding a full bluegrass/country/soulful inspired score where those same characters (who we knew on only a surface level in the film) could suddenly open their inner feelings and express themselves with more depth and clarity through song on stage, everything about THE SPITFIRE GRILL suddenly changed, and for the better.

Casting producer Cassandra Klaphake has assembled a talented ensemble of well-cast players. Greta Perlmutter in her ABT debut thoroughly engages as the show's central figure, Percy. But while our attention may focus on Percy's troubled character and what burdensome secret she may be carrying, support from the remaining six players is here equally strong. Marina Blue Jarrette softly charms as the shy though eventually loyal Shelby; Nicholas Hambruch becomes immediately likable as the small-town sheriff; Darren Friedman is effectively gruff without overpowering as Caleb (his solo, Digging Stone, is a perfect example of discovering through song what makes his perpetually angry character tick in a way the film never could); regular ABT player Carolyn McPhee is Effy, the gossipy postmistress, the primary source of all small-town gossip, while Tim Shawver remains virtually unrecognizable throughout as the mysterious, vagrant-like character listed in the Playbill as simply The Visitor.

But the character that effortlessly grounds the production with a sense of reality in what is essentially a surreal setting - and let's be honest; musical theatre by its nature is an absurdly surreal, abstract form of entertainment where talk of something resembling reality is a rarity - is Barbara McBain as Hannah, the elderly, tough, no-nonsense owner of the Spitfire Grill. With a background in theatre that spans many years, playing the elderly Hannah Ferguson is like watching a performer who, through age and experience, has grown into the role and found it now to be a perfect fit.

Photo credit to Arizona Broadway Theatre ~ L to R: Marina Blue Jarrette, Greta Perlmutter, Barbara McBain

Arizona Broadway Theatre ~ https://azbroadway.org/ ~ 7701 W Paradise Ln, Peoria, AZ ~ 623-776-8400

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