'Rose' predictable but full of warmth
By Joseph Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic
| • | 'Abie's Irish Rose'
2 p.m. today and Sept. 21 Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter $6 438-4480/5230 |
 |
|
"Abie's Irish Rose" is a comedy that most drama students have heard of, but that few people have ever seen. Written by Anne Nichols, the show played successfully on Broadway from 1922 to 1927. Despite bad reviews, people kept buying tickets.
Filled with stereotypes and predictability, the script continues to have a nostalgic appeal because young love wins over bigotry. But perhaps we continue to relate to characters with their blinders on who steadfastly insist that because they can't see reality, it doesn't exist.
The reality in this show is that a Methodist minister has just married Abie and Rose Mary. Neither is ready to disclose that, so Abie introduces Rose to his father as his girlfriend. Solomon Levy insists she must be Jewish, so the masquerade begins.
A week later, they're about to be married again, this time by a rabbi. But Patrick Murphy, Rose Mary's father, arrives with his parish priest, insisting the marriage is a hoax and threatening to take his daughter back to California. So the youngsters arrange for a quick third, Catholic ceremony.
Cut to Christmas Eve a year later. The newlyweds are even more in love, but estranged from both of their fathers. In true sitcom style, the rabbi and the priest entice the in-laws into a reconciliation built around the new twin babies.
Director Vanita Rae Smith adapts the script for Reader's Theater, cutting the original three acts down to two and deftly dealing out all the parts to a cast of five. The mixed plate of Irish and Yiddish accents that result could give a purist indigestion, but the abundant warmth and good humor quickly establish character and win over the audience.
The fathers have the best parts. Jim Hutchison is delightful as Solomon Levy, celebrating his son's good fortune, masterminding the Jewish ceremony and lamenting over the deception ("I'd sell her for a nickel"). Richard Pellett is all blustering stubbornness as Patrick Murphy, wearing a crown of righteousness and indignation ("I'd take her back for nothing").
Jo Pruden and Pellett (doing some creative doubling) are fun as the bickering neighbors, the Cohens. She's perpetually complaining about her appendicitis operation. He's complaining about her complaining.
Russell Motter doubles as the well-intended but weak-willed Abie and as the family rabbi. Stefanie Anderson is all sweetness and no spunk as Rose Mary Murphy.
There's a bit of moralizing as the rabbi and the priest compare notes from comforting soldiers on the World War I battlefield ("It's the same God above them"), and a warm reconciliation between the new grandfathers as they take turns holding their new grandchildren.
Certainly "Abie's Irish Rose" is a stock situation filled with stock characters and stock solutions. But it's also undeniably universal in its appeal.
