APRIL 1981 HIGH GEAR Page 15

Cast of new Jacques Brel production

Four on the way up

by R. Woodward

Individual shows at the Cabaret Dinner Theatre in North Royalton not only tend to be outstanding in and of themselves, they also offer theater goers the pleasure of seeing the careers of a number of performers apparently heading for the top.

The producers of shows at the Cabaret Dinner Theatre have a knack for locating and making good use of those hard working local performers who are ready for the more concentrated efforts that usually precede finally making it as established professionals.

Four careers seen earning well deserved boosts last month at Cabaret were those of Donna Christe, Christopher Christian, Sandy Kucinich and Steve Snyder, the cast of a new version of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

(Those who don't mind doing a bit of driving can check out the show on tour at the Hilltop Theatre in Elyria. Cabaret's house manager Duanne Daniels says that taking 1-90 West, one can get there from downtown Cleveland in about 40 minutes. The address of the Hilltop Dinner Theatre is 338 Bridge St., Elyria, Ohio 44035. Its phone number is 1322-5748, near-by Long Distance from Cleveland, Kucinich was not available for touring with the show and has been replaced by Jerry Fogelsor).

Despite all of the productions of this show which have appeared in this area in the past few years, this version was no rehash.

The orchestration and staging were new creations, and the only readily apparent similarities between this production and Cabaret's production of Brel of about two years ago were the fast pacing (a feature of all Cabaret shows) and the singing of the song "Marieke," by Donna Christe, the only member of the cast who appeared in the pre-

vious Cabaret version.

The deep feeling and sense of authority with which Christe sings "Marieke" has made the song seem to be so completely hers that not hearing her sing it again would have been as disconcerting as watching Tony Bennet in a musical revue about San Francisco not permitted to sing the song about where he left his heart.

This version of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris adroitly side stepped Brel's occasional weep-in-your-beer excesses, Director John J. Turchon using the comedy talents of his singers in ways that were sometimes surprising but always honest to the material. It is hard to recall any other version of Brei in which the humor has been as credible and ingratiating.

An example of wimpy "moodiness" avoided was the presentation of the song "Timid Frieda." Instead of the cast mooning over Brel's depiction of a bashful

loner, the song was sung in a crisp, straight forward manner by Kucinich, the voices of the men joining in from time to time, while Donna Christe ambled around the stage in a long, old coat, looking somewhat perplexed and chomping on a large wad of gum.

Christe is one of those rare comedy talents who can seem like good taste personified, no matter what the gag or premise. Shaped more like Dolly Parton than Twiggy, and at times encouraged by her directors to do physical clowning, Christe shares with Parton the ability to completely disarm you with a guileless and straight-foward manner that always seems 100% genuine.

Facially Christe looks a little like Barbra Streisand and has been compared to her -predictably but not very justly. Unlike Streisand, Christe never seems to be a calculating singing mechanism. With Christe there is never any doubt that a sensitive

Coping with Joey

(Cont'd. from previous page) becoming increasingly difficult to tell just by looking at the movements which cast members were the ones without several years of dancing experience.

Cabaret's playing area is very small. Marple said that by the clever deployment of a few female dancers Davis was very persuasively evoking a 1950s night club dance chorus.

Also included in the show, said Marple, is a ballet sequence consisting of Patrick Long, a veteran of the Cleveland Ballet and the Dee Hilliar Dancers, dancing a troubled dream that Joey has about himself at one point in the story.

Marple said that he had not known Davis before starting on this show, and that her being involved in it was a result of her

The cast of Cabaret Dinner Theatre's production of JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS. On the left Donna Christe. On the right Sandy Kucinich. In back Steve Snyder. In front Christopher Christian.

having appeared at open call auditions that he had held.

Marple was also eager to praise the acting talents of Carroll MacBride, who plays Mike the bar manager, and Jeddi Driscoll, who plays Vera, the wealthy widow who would like to keep Joey..

Marple said that he was very impressed with how quickly and how firmly MacBride had grasped the character he was playing, that of a tough, strict manager of the night spot which employs Joey as an entertainer, an individual who can see through all of Joey's wiles and pretensions. MacBride, said Marple, had all of his lines down after only two days of rehearsal.

Talking of how Jeddi Driscoll was playing Vera, a sort of alter ego of Joey's, also someone people have seldom seemed to mind doing things for, Marple said that Driscoll had a certain aura, a certain "alluring look," which would leave no doubts in the minds of audience members about why so many characters in the play regard Vera as being classy and desirable.

Driscoll, said Marple, gives a "throaty and very mellow" rendition of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered."

As to Joey, the lovable heel himself, Marple said that getting into the part has been as easy for him as "putting my shoes in the morning."

The play opens with Marple as Joey being picked up and literally thrown onto the stage--to represent Joey being thrown out of Columbus for getting involved with the mayor's underaged daughter. ("She looked like she was 35," says Joey.)

With this opening image, of landing just right, in the center of the stage, having told those with strong, adroit arms how to lift him up and hurl him, Marple may have hit upon an apt symbol for is involvement in yet another

living being is before you in the flesh.

Another important comedy talent seen in the new version of the Brel show was Christopher Christian, who may be familiar to you as a member of a rock group called Band I.

Other than appearing in a recent local production of Godspell, Christian is new as a featured player in musicals. During auditions for this new Brel production, producer Mark Marple was impressed with what seemed to be signs of an unused talent for high-powered comedy delivery. Christian's performing in the show showed that Marple had

read the signs accurately.

Imagine Al Jolson with long hair, not being maudlin, wearing a tiny earring, and being six-footfive in height and you will get some idea of the impact of Christopher Christian when he cuts loose. (The stage at the Cabaret Dinner Theatre is not very wide and the ceiling above it is not very high, but Marple decided that there would be no physical danger to any of the cast or audience as long as Christian was doing no musical routine involving his using a pogo stick.) An unforgettable comedy highlight of the show was Christian putting on a pair of klutzy (Continued on the next page)

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