The Theatre Cooperative continues to demonstrate its ability to combine interesting plays deserving another look with adventurous new work. Their third offering this season, which started with Bruce Bonafede's "Advice to the Players" and moved on to Rebecca Gilman's "Spinning into Butter", looks back beyond recent memory to Sylvia Regan's "Morning Star", a 1940 comedy drama firmly in the Yiddish Theatre tradition. However, this show was written in English and originally starred Molly Picon in her Broadway debut, with young Sidney Lumet, fresh from "Dead End" as the juvenile. Its script has never really been off the boards since. "Morning Star"--which previewed as "Star Spangled"-- recently moved up from community theatre stages to professional venues such as Steppenwolf's 1999 production. In Dec. 2000 the drama got back to its roots when the Folksbiene in NYC presented a Yiddish translation under the title, "An American Family". Since Regan and her composer husband also worked in the musical theatre, it's not surprising that an operatic adaptation by Gordon and Hoffman is in the works as well.
Community theater director Suzanne Bixby keeps her cast of local actors focused on the story. This is the saga of Becky Felderman, played by Maureen Adduci, an emigre widow from Russia raising her four children on the lower East Side. Act I, set in 1910-1911 includes her son's Bar Mitzvah supper, one daughter 's marriage to an aspiring songwriter, who works as an usher in his uncle's theater where she's in the chorus. It ends with the death of her youngest daughter in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire. The second act encompasses 1917-1918 when her son goes off to WWI and 1931, where her two married daughters go through family crises. The show ends with her grandson's Bar Mitzvah supper. The cast carries off the various dialects required without falling into stereotypes, helped by Regan's careful writing.
Adduci keeps the family drama under control, while local theatre veteran, Fred Robbins as Aaron Greenspan, the boarder sleeping on the couch in Act I provides a comic counterpoint. He keeps proposing and by the end of the show, she might just be willing. His major foil is Benjamin Brownstein, an ardent socialist, played by Jonathan Levine. Though the two come close to vaudeville in their perennial arguments, there's truth underlying their friendship and real social issues behind their disagreements. We're not surprised when always hard-up Greenspan loans his friend money to go back to Russia for the Revolution. The real history behind this play is perhaps its greatest charm.
The younger characters are believable as their diction changes from the children of emigrants to vintage New Yorkers. Laura DeCesare as Esther, the youngest, who perishes, is convincing as a girl trying to become American, romance and all. Robin Gabrellias her beau, Harry Engel, who's ambition is to be a teacher, is winning in the beginning, and sufficiently moving later in the play. He eventually marries Sadie, the oldest, played by Nanette Savides who tries the hardest and gets the least out of life. Her successful change from factory girl to bookkeeper to small business operator leads only to bitterness. Their marriage is barren. Susan Gross Nicholes as Fanny, the chorine, married to Broadway swell Irving Tashman, played with panache by Paulo Branco is the happiest of the lot, though he's not particularly faithful--and he won't let her stay on the stage. The family drama that ensues as these youngsters take their shot at the American Dream is predictable but still engaging.
This play is old-fashioned in the best sense. It's meant to be done by a company with mature leading actors, several juveniles, and even a youngster. In this case that's David Sumberg , who's plays both Bar Mitzvah boys, both named Hymie. Michael Avellar does a brief but solid turn as the older Hymie who goes off to war. There's even a role for an African-American, Fanny's maid Pansy, played forthrightly by Jeanette Lake-Jackson. She's come over to help with the last act celebration, and naturally winds up commiserating with Becky. After all, they both have grandchildren. The drama's tone is social commentary with implied judgement. The pros and cons of American life are presented, but "Life goes on, nuh?"
The Theatre Coop's production quality is getting more consistent. This show has been mounted with reasonable style by Doc Madison and his technical stalwarts, especially considering their limited resources. The set may not be up to Howard Bay's original but it seems habitable. One could envision a more multimedia approach to the story. James Peiser's musical choices are a bit hit-or-miss, though never inappropriate. Michele Ferro's costumes are believable and occasionally elegant. There are almost enough hats. Artistic director Lesley Chapman continues to find interesting dramas to mount on the only stage in the area that's on Broadway.