Review: CENTENNIAL CASTING at Penguin Rep Theatre

[Pictured from left] Bill Phillips (Doo-Doo), Joshua Morgan (Carmine), Michael Labbadia (Vincent), Grace Experience (Edie). Photo > Dorice Arden Madroner

Whenever I review the productions at Penguin Rep Theatre, there invariably are recurring themes about their production values that add up to consistently excellent theater.

Under the watchful eyes of Artistic Director Joe Brancato and Executive Director Andrew Horn, you always can count on Penguin for such high standards as Broadway-style set design,  sharp pacing, focused energy, and an eclectic range of audience-pleasing material, punctuated by adventurous original plays (that regularly find their way to off-Broadway).

What I don’t normally comment on explicitly in these reviews is something that has an implicit effect on  audience engagement: casting. Of course, I always comment on the actors, but casting is a distinct, innately mysterious discipline that is invisible to the audience. We see actors act. We don’t see casting directors cast.

Thanks to Penguin’s current product on the boards,  I cannot help but dish out kudos to Mr. Brancato and Mr. Horn for their casting chops, which is on par with all else they masterly manage. Once again, they have assembled a high-performing cast of actors who not only create sharply defined characters, but also interlock with each other to forge a jazz-tight ensemble. 

 As it turns out, the current Penguin production, which is directed by Mr. Brancato, revolves around the act of auditioning, hence its title Centennial Casting.

But wait, there’s more – because there is more than one kind of casting. There’s the theatrical kind where actors audition. Then there’s the industrial kind, where metal is forged (or cast) to create objects like screwdrivers and such. That’s Centennial’s line of trade, which is appropriate because the action that unfolds on stage is akin to a screwball comedy.

Given that setup, mused playwrights Gino DiIorio and Nancy Bleemer, what would happen if an actor’s headshot/resume was sent in error to a metal casting shop? The real-life answer is that the shop’s management presumably would contact the actor to clarify the confusion.

Such a flat-footed plot point, though, would end the play before it began. Instead, in Centennial Casting, we have metal shop owner Vincent DiDonato (Mike Labbadia) and his right-hand man Doo-Doo (Bill Phillips) conspiring to present themselves as a casting director and a movie director, respectively, Why? So downcast Vincent can meet the girl of his dreams, in the person of one Edie Keaton (Grace Experience), whose resume Doo-Doo has unearthed from piles of misplaced paperwork.

Vincent, whose favorite meal is comfort food like cannoli to combat his chronic loneliness as a hard-luck single guy, keeps the ruse going with an unsuspecting Edie by pretending he can make her dreams come true by casting her in a (non-existent) movie.

Ms. DiIorio and Ms. Bleemer conjure sweet comedic moments from the lengths to which Vincent and Doo-Doo go to keep alive Edie and Vincent’s romantic flame. Then a crisis of conscience strikes Vincent when the divorced Edie tells Vincent the one trait in a man she can’t abide by is lying. Oops.

Mike Labbadia creates a larger-than-life Vincent whose slow burns, emotional outbursts, and comically hapless attempts at romance reminded me of Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden in seminal sitcom The Honeymooners. I mentioned the Gleason comparison to Mr. Labbadia after his performance. What I didn’t realize at that moment is that in the script, which I read later, the character breakdown for Vincent invokes “Ralph Kramden” and an authors’ note in the script references “The Honeymooners.”

Keeping in the spirit of Ralphie boy, when he’s not painting broad strokes of comic timing, Mr. Labbadia effectively conveys the palpable pathos of a man approaching middle-age who’s rebounding from a failed relationship and desperately looking for love.

As shop foreman and Vincent’s best friend Doo-Doo, loosey-goosey Bill Phillips, in both vocal cadence and mannerism, makes a most worthy doppelganger of Ed Norton (played by Art Carney on “The Honeymooners”).  His Italian film director is a hoot. Mr. Phillips originated the role of Doo-Doo when Penguin Rep debuted Centennial Casting 18 years ago.

Vincent is not the only sad sack in this screwy crew. There’s also fumbling welder Carmine (Joshua Morgan), a veritable Niagara Falls of a blubberer who never met a tear he didn’t shed. Mr. Morgan endearingly squeezes every last drop out of his lachrymose role. He also embodies a precious sight gag, at one point clothed in multicolored silks as the most improbably outsized racehorse jockey you ever bet against.

Smoothly serving as a comely foil for the bravado of Vincent and Doo-Doo is Grace Experience as the naive and charming Edie, who aches to return to her first love – acting – after an extended hiatus. Ms. Experience exudes sincerity and kind-heartedness, even as she’s being taken advantage of by the vaudevillian shtick of the goofballs.

Coryn Carson turns in a strong supporting performance as Michele, Edie’s friend and waitress co-worker. Brassy Michele is skeptical from the get-go about Vincent’s bona fides as a casting director, pegging him as an opportunistic maker of porno movies who’s on the make. Nobody gets away with anything when no-nonsense Michele is around.

There are sprinkled throughout the play tongue-in-cheek references to the trade talk of acting and auditions, such as “sides” (selected pages from the script chosen for auditions); “specific” (actors are trained to avoid cliche or stereotypes in their portrayal and lean into creating a flesh-and-blood person with a backstory); listing “drives stick-shift” as a special skill on a resume (that’s a real thing); “under-five” (a bit role with fewer than five lines); and “the Scottish play” (meaning Macbeth; it is a centuries-long actors’ belief that it is bad luck to utter the Shakespeare play’s name inside a theater). It won’t alter one’s enjoyment of “the Casting play” to be unaware of those terms, but it will bring a smile of recognition to those who are familiar with the jargon.

Going back to the art of casting cited at the outset of this review, in Centennial Casting the actors’ suitability for the roles in which they’ve been cast is spot-on across the board.

The culture of casting is a fascinating, elusive dynamic. CDs (casting directors) are said to know within seconds of an audition if the actor is a possible fit for the role. On the other hand, it’s also axiomatic of casting that the people “in the room” who have a say in the decision don’t necessarily harbor a rigid idea of what they want to see. Rather, when an actor’s work resonates, the auditors know it when they see it and feel it.

That’s why actors prepping for an audition are advised not to guess what the CD is looking for. Actors are encouraged to do their homework and give their best interpretation of the character that showcases their talent and discipline.

There are effective lighting interludes for scene transitions and for atmospheric effect, the work of Lighting Designer Todd O. Wren. Isaac Goldbaum is Scenic Designer/Assistant Stage Manager. Coseume Designer is Kadee Mae. Idan Sassoni is Sound Designer.

Properties Designer is Dana R. Weintraub. Technical Director/Production Manager is Sarah French. Michael Palmer is Stage Manager.

Centennial Casting runs through July 7, 2024, at Penguin Rep Theatre, 7 Crickettown Road, Stony Point, N.Y. 10980;  penguinrep.org; 845--786-2873.

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