The Man Who Came to Dinner
Town Hall Arts Center: 2/19 – 3/20
L-R: Martha Harmon-Pardee, Eric Fry and Taylor Nicole Young (photo credit:Gary Duff)
Playwrights Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s “The Man Who Came to
Dinner” was first produced in 1939. It’s a 3-Act comedy that is now the most
produced American play in history.
In Town
Hall Arts’ production Eric Fry portrays Sheridan Whiteside, the outspoken and
offensive show-business commentator and radio wit, who has slipped on a piece
of ice outside the home to which he’s been invited to dinner. Throughout the
play Whiteside insults and humiliates the owners of this home, in which he is
now receiving medical treatment for a hip complaint.
Fry does a
great job spewing the requisite vitriol. Nevertheless…one might have wished for
a tad more self-adulating ‘tongue-in-cheek’ humor
Martha
Harmon Pardee’s portrayal of glamorous Hollywood Actress Lorrain Sheldon is sheer
theatre ice cream! Harmon Pardee has never been this outrageously funny. Her
performance will leave you breathless!
As Daisy
Stanley, the lady of the house Whiteside has thrown into chaos, Leslie Randle presents a
civility thinly veiling a desire to kill that has remarkable naturalness.
LuAnn
Buckstein is hilarious as Miss Preen, the longsuffering nurse, who’s the
constant butt of Whiteside’s verbal abuse. We have to wait a long time for her
rebuttal, but it’s worth the wait because when it comes Buckstein bristles with
comic brio.
Seth Maisel
gives us a frenetically funny performance of Banjo. Based upon the actor, Harpo
Marx, one might have wished that they’d have found him a curly blonde wig.
Taylor Nicole Young does an admirable job
as Whiteside’s secretary, Maggie Cutler.
Michael Duran's scenic design is one of this season's best and Seth
Alison’s lighting design is masterful.
The costumes
created by Linda Morken, especially those for Martha Harmon Pardee, are spot on!
It’s a longgg
evening of theatre and director Bob Wells makes sure that there are lots of
laughs.
Town Hall Arts Center is located at 2450 W. Main St.
in Littleton, Colorado. For tickets go online at www.TownHallArts.org or call the
box office at 303-794-2787.
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