Important Nonsense

Wolf's Mouth Theatre Company, Ithaca, NY

Review by Laura Darling

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“A whole bunch of roles played by a whole bunch of actors directed by a whole bunch (4) of directors, with a keyboard player, and including the world’s only known musical comedy about boxing.” That’s how local playwright David Guaspari billed the four comedies that make up the unrelated pieces he’s spun together into the show presented by Wolf’s Mouth Theatre Company at the Community School of Music and Arts’s third-floor performance space. 

 

There are 14 actors playing 12 roles, 4 directors, a hodgepodge of music (including some terrific pieces in the opera written by Guaspari), and a keyboardist from Ithaca College (who, alas, is not credited in the program).

 

The show opens with the short piece ’S Wonderful, from the Gershwin tune, about an alpha male and an alpha female giving courtship advice to a beta male and beta female, respectively. David Romm as Donnie makes a very believable egger-on of younger, more sensitive Simon (the likable A.J. Sage, who also appears as the unfortunate Art in “Mortality Play”). Their female counterparts are well played by Francesca Decker as Harriet and Kate Klein. This is a cute premise with a little twist. 

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Next up is what I found to be the most tightly written, enjoyable piece of the four, Mortality Play, in which a salesman (played by Sage) walks into his doctor’s office for a scheduled appointment during his lunch hour. The doctor, played by well-known local actor Gary Weissbrot, tells him he’s got “one of the new ‘Ten-Minute Rice diseases.’ With only 10 minutes to live, Art has to decide how he’s going to spend the rest of his life. Enter Nurse Nora, played by the always delightful Paige Anderson (in a red minidress and heels), to offer to spend the rest of his life with him, as she has done for a series of other unfortunates who’d earlier suffered from the same disease. The rest, well, it’s just plain fun.

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Fritz Merkle, Radio Mathematician, is supposed to be “an homage to the late, great Bob and Ray,” the beloved, droll, hilarious comedians who lit up the airwaves before TV took over as the entertainment vehicle of choice in the 1950s and ‘60s. It doesn’t quite live up to the billing, relying on obscure mathematician jokes and, well, dated so much they’re not very funny. The actors, Weissbrot paired this time with Erik Lucas, gave it their best shot.

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The show wraps up with Raging Opera, the boxing operetta, with four strong performances and fabulous voices — Nick Roscoe, Melanie Uhlir, Nate Murphy, and Cynthia Henderson. The singing is impeccable, the staging by veteran director Judith Pratt of Wolf’s Mouth is lively, and the piece was accompanied by pianist Alexander Simakas, but the book and story are convoluted and confusing, and the whole thing dragged on way too long. 

 

In fact, the overall length of this piece, which clocked in at 89 minutes including the opening speech, ruined it for me and for others I spoke with because it caused us to miss the beginning of the next show we planned to see, the brilliant Spy in the House of Men. The Fringe schedules tightly, and it is insensitive of any production company to go over the stated limit of 75 minutes. But Wolf’s Mouth, Guaspari, and the large cast have a big following in Ithaca, and most in the audience apparently enjoyed this fringe-y show.