One of Philadelphia’s leading actors happens to resemble Jackie Gleason (and also Orson Welles in his mature years). Scott Greer uses that coincidence to portray an overweight working-class guy who idolizes Gleason and concocts a scheme to get rich, much like the designs of Gleason’s character on “The Honeymooners.”
To the Moon is a clever and touching play written by Greer’s wife, Jennifer Childs. She co-founded this theater company to specialize in comedy and, more specifically, the history of comedy. So this remembrance of the art of Jackie Gleason is right up its alley. But it’s a story set in our own time rather than a documentary about Gleason.
Childs gives the audience historical and biographical data in a non-pedagogic manner. The play is entertaining fiction rather than a dissertation. In casual dialogue, we learn that Gleason was an avid golfer, that he disdained rehearsals and that he was an amateur astronomer who owned telescopes. This gives special resonance to his catch-phrase when he threatened to punch his wife by saying “To the moon.” And it adds dimension to this play that bears that appropriate title. The story is about a man’s dream of leaving his humdrum life and soaring to the skies. Gleason himself must have had some of those traits, given the evidence of creation of the character Ralph Kramden, a Brooklyn lug with delusions of grandeur. He was perpetually coming up with schemes to improve his lot in life. So it is with the character that Greer inhabits in this play. A big guy named Scottie is an unsuccessful actor who idolizes Gleason even as he goes through the drudgery of a hospital job. He comes into possession of a never-filmed Jackie Gleason script that’s missing its last page. Just as Kramden might have done, Scottie plans to write an ending and then sell the script for millions as an artifact.
Throughout the evening, Greer portrays frustration, disappointment and bravado with gestures and body movements that recall the comedian who used to be called “Mister Saturday Night” and “the Great One”— referring, in part, to Gleason’s oversized body. Greer has that, and the roundish face. He also captures Gleason’s common-man persona.
Greer additionally performs vignettes as Gleason’s sweet and silent Poor Soul and as the dandy, how-sweet-it-is Reginald Van Gleason III. These occur as Scottie imagines himself stepping into his idol’s shoes, and we see these dream scenes as black-and-white video projections. This is a marvelous homage, but his performance is much more than that.
Tracie Higgins touchingly portrays Scottie’s long-suffering wide Tracie, obviously modeled on Kramden’s wife Alice from “The Honeymooners.” Anthony Lawton is as strong a sidekick/co-star as Art Carney was, playing Scottie’s neighbor. A high spot is a scene in which Scottie and Lawton get drunk as they practice mixing a cocktail for Tracie.
Sean Roach adds a series of comic characters. Jorge Cousineau designed a humble apartment, and Matt Pfeiffer has directed with flair. A hilariously choreographed number recalls the June Taylor dancers whom Gleason used on his variety show. Like the entire play, this works especially well for old-timers who remember Gleason on TV, yet it’s entertaining even for audience members who never saw those programs.
As it encapsulates the mission of 1812 Productions, To the Moon is the most well-rounded, fleshed-out theater piece these folks have given us.
