Alfred Uhry's Tony-winning play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo,presented by ICT at the Irving Arts Center, opened May 1, 2013. Originally commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad as part of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the play premiered there at the Alliance Theater before transferring to Broadway the same year with its original cast.
Ballyhoo is set in 1939 Atlanta on the eve of the world premiere of “Gone With the Wind.” The story deals with internal anti-Semitism, the elitist German Jews and their attitude toward "the other kind," i.e. the Eastern-European Jews. In an era of rampant anti-Semitism in the South, Jews were barred from membership in the prestigious Venetian Club. Atlanta's elite, well-established German Jews countered with their own elite social club, the Standard Club, which barred "the other kind" of Jews, those "East of the Elbe." Their annual social highlight was Ballyhoo, a two-day round of non-stop parties culminating in a formal dance at the Standard Club on the last night of Ballyhoo. It was held during Christmas holidays when the students were home from college, and it attracted members of Jewish society from throughout the South.
The play transpires in the living room of bachelor family patriarch Adolph Freitag (Greg Phillips) who shares his home with, and financially supports, his widowed sister, the socially conscious Boo Levy (Dena Dunn), her overly dramatic daughter LaLa (Rachel Robertson), his widowed sister-in-law, the unflappable and somewhat clueless Reba Freitag (Brandi Andrade) and her studious and sensible daughter Sunny (Shannon Rasmussen).
The centerpiece of the set is a gigantic Christmas tree on which LaLa is putting the finishing touches as the play opens. Boo's entrance line is a classic which I won't give away. She is totally obsessed with making sure LaLa has a date for Ballyhoo which is just two weeks away. LaLa is more excited and focused on hanging outside the movie theater where the “GWTW” premiere is being held, so she can drink in the excitement and get a glimpse of Clark Gable. Her efforts to this end elicit many comic moments.
Into this mix add Joe Farkas (Edward Treminio), the young man Adolph met on one of his business trips and hired to work at his Dixie Bedding Company, and Peachy Weil (Travis Ponikiewski) of the socially connected "Weils of Louisiana" who has been hand-picked by Boo to be LaLa's date to Ballyhoo. Young love blossoms in some very unusual ways while giving us a glimpse into family attitudes.
Greg Phillips is perfect as Adolph as he vacillates between being the stern, irascible brother, loving uncle, and good-natured man-of-the-house. Dena Dunn as Boo, while at her best when being the pushy mother, often steps on her lines as she rushes through them, not pausing long enough to stay in the moment.
Rachel Robertson shows great comic flair as LaLa, exhibiting equal parts downtrodden, rebellious daughter and angst-ridden delusional drama queen. Shannon Rasmussen as Sunny delights in her scenes with her suitor, Joe, and in her easy relationship with her mother.
Edward Treminio, though still a student, has the innate acting chops that usually forecast a great future in the theater. His stage presence is excellent, and his outrage genuine as he perceives he’s not welcome at the Standard Club. Travis Ponikiewski makes the most of the cameo role of Peachy Weil, milking it for every possible laugh.
The star of this production is Brandi Andrade as Reba. She hits all the right notes with understated perfection rivaling Celia Weston who created the role on Broadway.
Alas, director Bruce Coleman, one of the Dallas area's top directors for over 20 years, does not live up to his reputation. While his staging is superb, he takes liberties with the opening scene as well as allowing his actors to mangle their pronunciations. When a Tony-winning playwright of Uhry's stature calls for LaLa to be on a ladder placing a star atop the Christmas tree, there is a reason: it puts the emphasis on Boo's entrance line penned to elicit maximum laugh value. Here, the audience didn’t respond because of this lapse; they didn't “get it,” and I wouldn't have either if not for seeing this scene numerous times done correctly. Coleman also allows the character of Joe to mispronounce his boss' name numerous times. In the final scene in which Sunny reclaims her Judaism as she leads the family in a Sabbath candle-lighting prayer, always a poignant moment, Coleman allows her to so mangle the Hebrew as to blunt the intended result. This play needs a dialect coach. With Bruce Coleman's many years of excellence in all facets of theater, he must surely be aware that if a script calls for the correct German vowel to be accented or the Hebrew language to be pronounced accurately, or even a language of “upper Slobovik” to be spoken, he can be sure that, even in the “hinterlands” of Irving, Texas, sitting in that audience is likely to be at least one German, one Jew fluent in Hebrew, and one immigrant from Upper Slobovia who will know the difference. That being said, I recommend ICTs production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo for an evening of pleasant entertainment.
