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A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Scaredycats
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Nothing happened! — Almost everybody, to their spouses
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Scaredycats begins in the living room of Christine and Peter (Julian Berlin and Dan Wingard) as they plan for the arrival of their fellow home-owners on this bucolic suburban Southern California street. Christine has called them all together to form a Neighborhood Watch group, even though the latest "crime" in the area was two suburbs away.
The neighbors are a motley crew. Just as in old World War II movies, there's one of everything. There's Trina Duffy (Heather Corwin), blissfully and heavily pregnant with twins; her husband Carl Duffy (Ben Brannon), who is scruffy, argumentative, and fascinated by camouflage uniforms, guns and Christine. There is the aloof society couple, Pat and Mary Helen (Derek Long and Meeghan Holaway) and their au pair, Justine, played by a luminous Lauren Waisbren. And the flamboyant gay couple, Adam and Tony (Christian Malmin and Josh T. Ryan) who bicker, kiss and make up, and bicker some more. They are the kinds of gays rarely seen on stage these days—-limp-wristed, shoulder twitching caricatures. But they do play it for maximum laughs.
The star of the show is Bradley Snedeker who plays Officer Bryce Melton, the policeman who has come to advise them on how to set up a Neighborhood Watch. He is a strutting "e;authority figure" who obviously thinks he's John Wayne and comes equipped with a magnificent panoply of facial expressions alone is worth the price of admission. As befits the hunky neighborhood bachelor, he is having an affair with the beautiful Christine.
Finally, there is Martin Espinoza (Patrick Gomez). He's the local pool boy, who becomes the designated criminal du jour and precipitates total chaos as disagreements among the neighbors turns into mayhem.
Scaredycats is light fare. No profound messages; no meaningful soliloquies. But as farce, it does the job very well indeed. Director Douglas Clayton pushes everybody over the top, and a merry time is had by all —including me.
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Scaredycats By Cheryl Bascom Directed by Douglas Clayton Cast: .Julian Berlin (Christine Pudney), Dan Wingard (Peter Pudney), Bradley Snedeker (Officer Bryce Melton), Christian Malmin (Adam Marcus), Josh T. Ryan (Tony Giannini), Ben Brannon (Carl Duffy), Heather Corwin (Trina Duffy), Derek Long (Pat Gleason), Mary Helen (Meeghan Holaway, 8/22-9/7; Kendra Munger 9/12-9/28), Lauren Waisbren (Justine), Patrick Gomez (Martin Espinoza). Set Design: David Mauer Lighting Design: Peter Strauss Costume Design: Lois Tedrow Sound Design: Grady Hutt Running Time: 90 minutes without intermission Produced by Fran Bascom and Gudrun Giddings, Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Avenue, South Pasadena, (866)-811-4111, www.fremontcentretheatre.com From : 08/23/08-09/28/08; opening 08/23/08 Tickets: $25. Students and seniors $20. Reviewed by Cynthia Citron based on 08/31/08 performance |
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