2007 Reviews

Love & Laughs at Bowie Community Theatre

Love & Laughs at Bowie Community Theatre

Proposals: reviewed by Jane Elkin

Bowie Community Theatre delivers on its promise that Proposals will “Make You Laugh, Cry and Remember … Your First Love, Your Lost Love, Your Last Love.” Bowie Playhouse at Whitemarsh Park is an intimate theater well suited to one of prolific playwright Neil Simon’s newer (1997) and lesser known plays.

“Life is both sad and funny,” Simon says. “I can’t imagine a comical situation that isn’t at the same time also painful. I used to ask myself: What is a humorous situation? Now I ask: What is a sad situation and how can I tell it humorously?”

In Proposals he’s found a sad situation that cuts across generations, races and classes. For humorous effect he tells it through the eyes of a sassy ghost. Clemma (TiaJuana Rountree), was housekeeper to ailing businessman Burt (Jerry Gietka) and his daughter Josie (Melissa Meyd). Speaking from the grave Clemma recalls their last summer together, 1953, at an idyllic cottage. Set designers Garrett Hyde and Kent Winterson have made the cottage so real you think you can smell the knotty pine.

These characters learn that in family, friendship and romance, forgiveness is key to getting the most out of life. In a span of 24 hours, seven relationships rise and fall. Yet this is the best summer of their lives.

Free-spirited Josie and law student Ken (Jake Koenig) are an ill-suited couple. When Josie breaks their engagement, hard feelings prompt friends and family to get involved, giving Proposals its plot. Enter Ray (Richard Tovish), Ken’s best friend and Josie’s former beau, for whom she still has feelings. Ray, however, talks only of his girlfriend, a ditsy model named Sammii (Tania Rosa Bindhoff), in a bid, perhaps unconscious, to make Josie jealous.

At Burt’s urging, Josie’s mother Annie (Janice Coffey) also comes to the cottage. Burt still loves her despite their divorce, but Josie has never forgiven her for remarrying.

Next, mafioso Vinnie (Michael Rogers) makes a surprise visit with his bodyguards (Melody Wihler and Craig Miller). This puzzles the ladies, as they’d met him only briefly at a nightclub in Miami. His behavior is crude, but his motives are good.

Clemma, meanwhile, expects a visit from her ne’er-do-well husband Lewis (Louis Murray), the only person capable of cracking her foundation. Rountree is the personification of wit, wisdom and love, balancing Murray, whose every nuance conveys flawed yet contrite appeal. From the moment he ambles onstage seeking reconciliation after a seven-year absence, every gesture and word of both actors reveal the magic between them.

As Josie and Ray, Meyd and Tovish are skilled players at the game of love. They share convincingly confident chemistry that exposes Josie’s relationship with Ken for the sham it was. Koenig’s hapless suitor Ken, overwhelmed by bitterness and crazed with rejection, is endearing for honesty and humor.

Ironically, Rogers’ gangster, a part intended as a caricature, has character. His delightful malapropisms, accent and bearing win him the most laughs.

Two of the leads are less convincing; perhaps they were distracted from their parts by other demanding off-stage roles. It is a rare actor who can director himself well, and Jerry Gietka falls short of the mark. His portrayal of Burt as the calm observer is amusing for one scene, but it’s flat when sustained throughout an entire play. Similarly, Coffey — the production’s costumer — plays his ex-wife as a caricature of a complex woman. They lack dimension, which leaves you wondering how they raised such a spirited daughter as Josie.

The staging is notable for effective use of freeze poses and music. A tango by Quartetto Gelato sets the mood in Act I, and the foreboding orchestration of Act II is equally suitable. On the other hand, musical underscoring of dialogue is distracting. So was the eavesdropping blocked into every scene.

This show is most memorable, though, for evoking laughter, tears and nostalgia, as promised. Clemma and Lewis forge an enduring relationship. Josie forgives her mother and is reunited with Ray. Ken forgives them. Vinnie and Sammii find love, or at least lust. Burt and Annie acknowledge their continued affection for each other before he dies, and life goes on with everyone wiser and richer for the experience.

Directed by Jerry Gietka. Assistant director: Cynthia Bentley. Set and lights: Garrett Hyde. Costumes: Janice Coffey.

Playing thru May 29 at 8pm FSa; 2pm Su @ Bowie Playhouse, White Marsh Park, Rt. 3, Bowie. $15: 301-805-0219.

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