2006 Reviews

Bowie Community Theatre’s Rumors

Almost-ordinary people who are a little bit screwy doing the best they can — and in this production that’s very well indeed — in a situation they don’t know how to handle.

reviewed by Dick Wilson

Gather a bunch of busybodies in the same room, and you’re bound to have a roomful of busy bodies. That’s what Bowie Community Theatre’s production of Rumors is about, and that’s what works to make this sort of comedy successful.

Bowie Community Theatre has a flair for choosing plays that invite its actors to explore, expanding their dramatic skills without risking caricature. The productions tend to the light-hearted (Seven Year Itch), with an occasional serious drama (The Heiress) thrown in. Drawing from a pool of good amateur actors, the company can confidently put on straightforward productions. They don’t usually attempt plays with profound, dark meanings that the rest of the world hasn’t yet figured out.

Rumors is what I like to call a New York play, the kind of work that Neil Simon owns. Simon is the undisputed American master of this type of soft comedy. Other plays in the same genre (not necessarily limited to a New York setting) include Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple. In these fast-paced comedies there isn’t much that’s profound; what the author is looking for is laughs. But the laughs have to arise from circumstances and dialogue that rises above slapstick, meaning that the actors must reach into themselves to flesh out characters and bring out the humor of their situations.

Rumors is the ideal play for this company: The play’s characters are almost-ordinary people who are a little bit screwy, but they’re doing the best they can in a situation they don’t know how to handle.

Four couples have convened at the home of a mutual friend, who happens to be deputy mayor of New York City, for what is supposed to be a dinner party celebrating the host couple’s 10th wedding anniversary. But the hostess is absent, and we learn that the host (who never appears) is hiding upstairs with a bullet hole in his earlobe. The question of how and why his ear acquired this bullet hole is never resolved, nor does it matter. All that the guests are concerned about is how they can avoid having their names involved in any political scandal that might attach to the incident.

Such is the flimsy plot, but plot is not what matters. What counts here is performance as these eight characters each mount their own defenses.

Gossip and rumor become stories that circulate among the guests and, just like in real life, the stories develop lives of their own. It all comes to a climax when the cops arrive. They’re checking on a car accident, but their investigative curiosity is piqued by the odd behavior of the guests.

In the course of the play, each character stakes out his or her own dramatic territory, and each makes the most of opportunities. The couples are Lenny and Claire Gantz (played by James McDaniel V and Michele Hitchcock), Ken and Chris Gorman (Ray Fulton and Joanne Bauer), Ernie and Cookie Cusack (Rick Hall and Sharon Zelefsky) and finally, Glenn and Cassie Cooper (Michael Rogers and Jodie Calvert). [Note the fun that Simon has here with the character’s names: the men are Len, Ken, Glenn and Ernie; the women’s first names all begin with the letter C.]

Every actor manages to construct a character that contributes to the play; none of the characters is superfluous. However, two fine performances deserve mention as real standouts.

Jodie Calvert is the outraged wife who suspects her husband of infidelity. Calvert’s inspired depiction of out-of-control rage, followed by simmering resentment, then some multi-level anger, is the stuff of fine acting. I’ve never seen a better display of raw emotion.

James McDaniel has the meatiest role in the play; his performance while being interrogated by the police is truly hilarious, as he concocts a fanciful tale, on the spur of the moment, to account for the strange goings-on at the house. McDaniel does this high-tension bit with finesse and perfect timing; he carries it off without a hitch in a memorable performance.

Bowie Community Theatre produces about four shows per theater year, one play for each season. Yet to come this year are two more comedies (one is another Neil Simon play) and a whodunit. They strive to entertain, and that’s what works very well in community theater.

Director: Estelle Miller. Stage Manager: Rose English-Arrondondo. Set Designer: Garrett Hyde. Scenic Designer: Jill York.

Playing thru October 21 at 8pm FSa @ White Marsh Park, off Rt. 3 Southbound, Bowie. $15: 301-805-0219.

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