"Music Man" Review

Here's Bev's review!:

Choreographer Ron Cisneros and costumer Jean Henderson are the clear winners of the new Davis Musical Theatre Company production of Meredith Willson's 'The Music Man,' under the direction of Steve Isaacson.

I'm consistently impressed by what Cisneros can do with a mixed group of dancers and nondancers, while making everything look cohesive.

This 'Music Man' has a huge cast: perhaps larger than I remember ever seeing on the DMTC stage before, and many of them children of varying sizes from adolescent down to the very young. Cisneros' choreography makes this a very good show.

Henderson must have been seeing stars before she finished all the costumes, as the Independence Day scene is filled with stars and stripes of all sizes. The entire look of the production is crisp and clean, and the stage action pops.

The excellent choreography and costumes are complemented by a solid cast of performers, many of them old-timers who haven't worked together in awhile.

Rand Martin may not be the most dynamic Harold Hill you'll ever see, but he handles the role well. (Although, alas, he flubbed several lines at the performance I saw.) Hill is the traveling salesman you can't dislike, and Martin does a good job.

Laura Wardrip is excellent as Marian Paroo, the librarian not easily taken in by this stranger who promises to create a boys' band, thus preventing the youth of River City, Iowa, from being corrupted by the town's new pool table. Wardrip has a lovely voice and she looks beautiful, especially in the gown worn for the town social.

As Marian's mother, Lenore Sebastian is first-class, with an Irish brogue that sounds authentic to this American ear.

Michael Carey rounds out the Paroo family as Winthrop, the shy young boy with a lisp, who still broods over his father's death two years earlier, and whose life is changed by Hill and his promises.

Gil Sebastian makes a bombastic Mayor Shinn, master of the malaprop and home-grown phrases - 'I couldn't make myself more clear if I were a buttonhook in the well water!' - who wants his town councilmen to 'get that spellbinder's credentials,' and also hopes to keep the town hooligan away from his oldest girl.

Mary Young sinks her teeth into the role of Shinn's wife, Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn. Young relishes her many chances to sing off-key and preen over all the townspeople.

My one disappointment with the direction or choreography - it's unclear which is to blame - came during the tableau of Grecian urns performed by Eulalie and her friends.

I could detect no difference between 'one Grecian urn' and 'two Grecian urns,' nor did the women create anything close to resembling 'fountain.' Granted, this sequence is supposed to be bad, but it could have been a little better at being bad.

Paul Fearn plays Marcellus Washburn, Hill's buddy and accomplice from years earlier, who happens to be in the town when the 'professor' sets up shop. Fearn, reminiscent of Buddy Hackett (who played the role in the movie), is the perfect choice for Marcellus.

Matt Kohrt is Tommy Djilas, the town hooligan; McKinley Carlisle is Zaneeta Shinn, the mayor's eldest daughter.

They make a cute couple.

Rich Kulmann, in the small roles of the train conductor and (later) the town constable, has serious projection problems and could barely be heard (which is unusual for this veteran actor).

Marc Valdez is appropriately smarmy as Charlie Cowell, the anvil salesman determined to warn the town about Hill before it's too late.

The town councilmen - Rich Price, Rick Wennstrom, Don Stephenson and Andy Hyun - make a great barbershop quartet, although their tempos are a bit slow from time to time.

The 'Pickalittle Ladies,' who fill Professor Hill in on all the gossip about Marian, are irresistible.

Isaacson is credited with scenic design; I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, knowing that things often get done at the last minute, and that, in this case, he and his wife were called out of town unexpectedly. The backdrop seems to have no correlation to the show, and adds nothing to the look of the stage except a lot of empty sky and badly proportioned buildings that are intended to represent Main Street.

That said, you have to work really hard to do a bad production of 'Music Man.' Even with its little flaws, this one delights.