Fifty-eight years ago, having already achieved success in Hollywood and on Broadway, composer-lyricist Frank Loesser immersed himself in a passion project, a quasi-operatic musical about an unlikely romance between an aged, immigrant grape farmer and a lovelorn young waitress. Its heart-on-its-sleeve emotionality and soaring arias were hardly what “the tired businessman” — the commercial theater’s target market — sought, yet The Most Happy Fella became a popular and critical hit.
Still, the show is rarely revived these days, perhaps because of its vocal demands or maybe due to the changing tastes of audiences. Whatever the reasons, they have not given pause to Palm Beach Dramaworks and the director of its concert series, Clive Cholerton. He has gathered a sizeable, full-voiced company, headed by William Michals — the thrilling bass-baritone who wowed audiences last summer as the title character(s) in Man of La Mancha — as rancher Tony Esposito.
The score, rendered by musical director Howard Breitbart and The Wick’s Michael Ursua in the two-piano arrangement authorized by the pragmatic Loesser, sounds glorious. And Cholerton’s staging bends the definition of a “concert” even further towards a full production, with a few music stands and scripts scattered about the stage as a safety net. Add the simple, but affecting choreography by Lindsay Bell and you have a complete, completely satisfying evening of rarified musical theater.
Loesser’s score has one foot in the sphere of operatic art songs and the other in the conventions of Broadway. Michals and his lovely co-star Jessica Hershberg — who took a leave of absence from the Broadway cast of Cinderella to play Tony’s mail order bride, Rosabella — do transcendent justice to the show’s signature love duet, “My Heart Is So Full of You.” But chances are it is one of the pop hits, “Standing on the Corner” or “Big D,” that you will be humming as you head up the aisle afterwards.
Michals and Hershberg handily carry the production, but there are lots of worthy supporting roles, all filled with talented performers. Foremost among them is Jim Ballard as the handsome ranch foreman who catches Rosabella’s eye, but also deserving of attention are Jeni Hacker as Tony’s sourpuss sister and Gabriel Zenone as the local doctor.
In the tradition of Rodgers and Hammmerstein, Loesser throws in a secondary romantic couple, ranch hand Herman and Rosabella’s waitress pal, Cleo. It is formulaic stuff, but you will not mind since they are played with such gusto by likeable Shane Tanner and slyly comic Laura Hodos.
Just as I was about to add that the only drawback to this musical oasis in the middle of a scorching hot South Florida summer is that Dramaworks only performs its concerts for two weeks, word came Tuesday that the show has been extended a week past its original July 27 closing date, and so you can now catch The Most Happy Fella through Aug. 3. See that you do.
THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, Palm Beach Dramaworks, 201 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday, Aug. 3. $40. (561) 514-4042.
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Put down that doughnut long enough to consider the plight of morbidly obese Charlie, a 600-pound Idaho couch potato who has willfully eaten himself to the brink of death. He is the main character and, metaphorically, the title character of Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, an off-putting but compelling drama about body image, truth-telling, religious beliefs and online education.
In short, the play receiving its Southeastern premiere at Coral Gables’ GableStage, is as stuffed with themes as Charlie is with meatball subs. While it could stand to be put on an idea diet, it is hard to deny Hunter’s provocative dramatic situation and his ability to create juicy acting roles.
Foremost among them, of course, is Charlie, a 600-pound, grotesquely fat man with plenty of reasons to be angry at the world. Yet he remains serenely optimistic about life and about those around him, even if it seems unlikely he will survive the week.
In those probable final days, Charlie (Gregg Weiner) remains focused on his job, teaching expository writing over the Internet to a group of students as clueless of what he looks like as they are of how to create an essay. So he sighs in frustration as much as he wheezes, but Charlie insists on stubbornly remaining in his apartment instead of going to a hospital, as Liz, his nurse-friend-food enabler (Amy Miller Brennan), pleads with him to do.
He is also intent on reconnecting with and achieving redemption through his teenage daughter Ellie (Arielle Hoffman), an angry, aimless youngster he has not seen in 15 years, since he divorced her alcoholic mother to move in with a male partner. That partner, Alan, died after refusing to eat, following a visit to his Mormon church where something unknown to Charlie happened. Coincidentally, into Charlie’s apartment walks a young, blond Mormon missionary known as Elder Thomas (Karl Skyler Urban), eager to spread the word of his religion, but harboring a secret of his own.
As Charlie, Weiner is a head peeking out of a lumpy fat suit, so weighed down by his body that he must rock himself to gain the momentum to rise off his couch, then waddle slowly to the bathroom with the aid of a metal walker. His physical self may be out of control, but mentally he remains sharp and able to remain calm as the female characters all aim irate tirades at him.
Weiner dominates the production, but director Joseph Adler pulls a couple of terrific performances from his young actors —Hoffman and Urban — which is one of his signature talents. Hoffman inhabits foul-mouthed, belligerent, pot-smoking Ellie with white-hot intensity, in marked contrast to Urban’s oblivious cool demeanor.
The usual GableStage design team helps to create the curious world of The Whale, from Lyle Baskin’s books and pizza boxes-strewn apartment to Ellis Tillman’s character-rich costumes and Jeff Quinn’s understated lighting.
For those more academically inclined than Charlie’s students, Hunter layers his play with allegorical references to Melville’s Moby-Dick and the Bible’s Jonah saga. Still, The Whale is hardly as profound as it wants to be, but it does contain a handful of remarkable characters that audiences are likely to be drawn to and repelled by.
THE WHALE, GableStage at the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. Through Sunday, Aug. 17. Tickets: $40-$55. Call: (305) 445-1119.