Review By Rick Pender

Stephen Sondheim was not long out of college in 1954 when he began writing his first professional musical, Saturday Night. It took more than 40 years to get the show produced, but a youthful vigor still courses beneath Saturday Night's surface. Now that the show's score and book are established, it will surely become a popular choice with educational institutions.

An April 26-29, 2001, production at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) showed Saturday Night to be an excellent vehicle for young performers. The characters in the show are young adults in 1920s America, so CCM's musical theater majors are perfectly suited for this show.

John-Andrew Clark played Gene, a ne'er-do-well trying to deny his Brooklyn roots and break into high society in 1929 Manhattan. It's not an easy role: Gene's a faker without many redeeming qualities, but Clark gave him a fine streak of bravado and occasional flashes of vulnerability. When he sings "Class," we see the stars in his eyes.

More satisfying was Annie Leri as Helen, who quickly sheds social climbing and tries to reform Gene, even when we can't quite see why she'd do so for a louse like Gene. Singing "So Many People," Saturday Night's most affecting number (a harbinger of later Sondheim songs of poignant insight), Leri was memorable.

Gene's rambunctious buddies -- Nick Belton, Will Ray, Matthew Tweardy, Leo Nouhan and Neal Shrader -- were full of adolescent high spirits. As objects of the guys' affections, Leigh Ann Wielgus played the feisty Celeste, while Melissa Bohon giggled her way through the flighty Mildred. All did fine jobs with Brooklyn accents in song and dialogue. Jeff Griffin, completing his M.F.A. in directing with this smartly paced production, used 20 actors with good results, including several scenes of night clubs and dances that gave small roles a chance to be featured.

In CCM's flexible 150-seat Studio Theater, the "beeyoutiful woild" of Saturday Night was created with two moveable platforms with rails and posts, designed by Tricia Thelen. Arranged one way, they created the front porch in Flatbush, with a swing (flown in and out). The platforms were quickly reconfigured as the foyer of the Plaza, the entrance to a movie theater, a nightclub and a police station. The occasionally too loud band (string bass, percussion, and two pianos, one played by musical director Brian Katona) played from the balcony encircling the theater, directly above the action.

Fans of Sondheim should have been well-pleased by this production of a youthful but pleasant work, a worthy addition to the canon of America's most honored writer for the musical theater.

E-mail Rick Pender

Curtain Call (April 26, 2001)
A Direction for Theater (April 19, 2001)
Curtain Call (April 19, 2001)
more...

personals | cover | news | music | movies | arts | listings | columns | dining | classifieds | mediakit | home

Ins and Outs
Portraits and landscapes come together at downtown gallery

Dark Victorians
Village Players offer a noir tale of family relationships

The Fine Print

Web Feature: Searching for Roots
Know Theatre stages Lanford Wilson's Redwood Curtain

Web Feature: Y.E.S. Festival at Northern Kentucky University
Plays Need Work, but the Kids Are OK

Shake It
Basically Dance

Curtain Call
Theaters, actors, etc.

Arctic Circle or Bust
Writer's block (books, authors, etc.)

Arts Beat
No thugs in Our House