John Patrick is a Pulitzer-prize winner, though not for this play about a frugal junk-lady whom everybody loves. Nevertheless, Everybody Loves Opal has been popular community and dinner theater fare. I doubt that will be the case with Venice Apple's production, which, much like the three crooks' plot to insure and then kill Opal, needs to have a fire lit under it. When a gag works, like Opal making tea from recycled bags hanging on a line, it gets repeated ad nauseum.
Annabelle Weenick, usually a treat in tart-tongued roles, is here merely loud and silly. As the first of the would-be murderers Opal wins over, Sarah Jackson scores the most credulity, aided by costume changes from gaudy minis to a simple pale pink dress. No matter the alterations in Jay Strauss' dress, as greedy Sol, who falls for Opal, he pushes out his mouth and moves like an aardvark. Unsightly, Blake Walton hits a low as a sarcastic, unlikely ex professor who's lost a lung and with it his career and conscience. Costumes and some props pass but most else flunks.
