STAGE REVIEW
'You Can't Take it With You' highly entertaining

By Joseph Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theater Critic

HPU's production of "You Can't Take it With You" has lots of laughs and an understated but clear message. 'You Can't Take It With You' 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays through May 5 Hawai'i Pacific University Theatre $14 375-1282

The play by Kaufman and Hart is a gentle 1937 living room character comedy filled with whimsy and wonderful parts for a large cast. HPU director Joyce Maltby has the knack for coaxing excellent ensemble work and genuine performances from actors at all levels of proficiency. The combination of play and director results in a relaxing two hours filled with laughs and an understated, but clear, message.

Actors love the play because there are no small parts.

Grandpa (Jim Tharp) quit going to work 30 years earlier because it simply wasn't fun anymore. He has since spent his time attending commencement exercises and surrounding himself with people of like mind. Tharp is in his best element here, innocently looping in the humor and relishing every line of it.

Mamma (Connie Ditch) has spent the past eight years writing plays because a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to the house and it seemed a nice change from oil painting. In the part, Ditch is bemused, but never befuddled, and slides into unconventionality like a duck to water.

Dad (Peter Bunn) is busy in the basement, building fireworks with Mr. De Pinna (Harold Burger), who stopped at the house one day and simply stayed. Daughter Elsie (Becky Maltby) makes candy and practices aerobic ballet, while husband Ed (Luis Valdespino) prints up slogans to pack in the candy boxes.

The central story line features conventional granddaughter Alice (Marisol Suarez), who loves her family dearly, but simply wants to marry Tony (Todd Middleton), the son of her wealthy employer. And this is where the script and the production sag a little. While Grandpa is the central character, it's Alice and Tony who must move the action forward. And it's an incredibly tough job to be interesting just because you're in love.

Surrounded by so much bizarre behavior, these two characters tend to fade, and Suarez and Middleton lack the experience to keep them fresh and appealing. The play's dated dialogue works well for the peripheral characters, but in the central pair it can become sappy and whining, and dull the overall luster of the play.

Still, there is plenty in even the smallest roles to keep us engaged.

John Mussack is wonderfully brittle as the agent from the Internal Revenue Service. Winston Earle is engaging as Donald, musing on why his relief check can't be delivered without his wasting half an hour waiting in a weekly line. Jessica Hawkins makes cook Reba uncomplicatedly childlike. Larry Bialock and Jan McGrath are colorful as refugee Russian royalty, and Louise South is just fine as an actress gone gaga on gin.

Some of the play's best jewel moments come from John Hunt as Alice's straight-laced boss as he struggles to retain his disintegrating dignity in an uncontrolled household — supported in kind by Virginia Jones as his beleaguered wife. Hunt brings remarkable depth and detail to a part that could be simply stodgy.

Maltby adds wonderful visual touches to the comic staging.

Ed hesitates just the right split second before charging upstairs to join Essie, now that Grandpa has decided the time is right for them to have a baby. Three family members sink simultaneously to the edge of the sofa, blocking the guests' view of the unconscious actress. Donald shatters the awkwardness of the dinner party by bolting through the room on a critical grocery mission.

Paul Guncheon's set offers a comfortable period backdrop, and big band swing tunes set the tone and bridge the action.

The performance is an overall success and a genuine good time.