Tag Archives: John Doyle

A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

Jim Parsons stars as a parishioner directing his church’s next play in A Man of No Importance (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 18
www.classicstage.org

Tony winner John Doyle says farewell to Classic Stage after six years as artistic director with the humbly titled A Man of No Importance. At a talkback following the performance I saw, six of the actors couldn’t stop gushing about Doyle’s unique style and, of course, his importance.

At St. Imelda’s, a small parish church in Dublin in 1964, fortysomething Alfie Byrne (Jim Parsons) has decided that instead of staging Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest again, he and the amateur church theater company will put on Wilde’s controversial 1891 play, Salome, which troubles Father Kenny (Nathaniel Stampley, but I saw Benjamin Howes).

Talking about the choice of play, Father Kenny tells Alfie: “I went to the archbishop myself.” “‘Don’t put him out,’ I said. ‘That little theater is a holy place to Alfie Byrne. He loves Saint Imelda’s the same way some men love women.” Alfie, who is a bus conductor, replies, “I’m sure he had a fine smirk on him when he heard that one.” Father Kenny answers, “The truth be told: You brought this on yourself, Alfie, no one else did. You should have told me this Salome was a dirty play.” Alfie retorts, “It’s not. It’s art, Father, art!”

Father Kenny’s analogy will resonate later when Alfie brings up “the love that dare not speak its name” with an apparition of Oscar Wilde himself.

Characters hang out in the back as the action happens out in front at Classic Stage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

In a rousing first musical number, we meet the rest of the cast on the bus driven by Robbie Fay (A. J. Shively), including Mr. Carney the butcher (Thom Sesma), mother-of-nine Mrs. Curtain (Kara Mikula) former all-Ireland gymnast Ernie Lally (Joel Waggoner), Peter Pan portrayer Miss Oona Crowe (Alma Cuervo), onetime Saint Joan star Mrs. Grace (usually played by Mary Beth Peil but I saw Beth Kirkpatrick), acting newbie and temporary church janitor Peter Linehan (Da’Von T. Moody), Sodality stalwart Mrs. Patrick (Jessica Tyler Wright), and stage manager Baldy O’Shea (William Youmans).

Everything stops when a fresh face boards the bus, the young, shy, and beautiful Adele Rice (Shereen Ahmed), a country lass arriving from Roscommon; she especially captures the attention of Alfie, who instantly decides she must play Salome, a casting choice that takes a lot of convincing, as Adele has never acted before and appears to be escaping a past she prefers not to discuss.

Alfie lives with his sister, the matronly Lily (Mare Winningham), who is being courted by Mr. Carney. But she refuses to settle down with a man until Alfie weds. When Alfie tells her about Adele, Lily erupts with happiness, singing, “The girls at Sodality / Call me a martyr / But that’ll be all in the past / Now heaven has lifted / The burden of life: / And has brought you a sweetie at last! / Oh . . . / You had better propose to her fast!” Little does Lily know but Alfie has his heart set on someone very different.

As opening night approaches, the revelation of deep-held secrets threatens the production and various characters’ personal lives.

Several actors also play instruments in A Man of No Importance (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

A Man of No Importance features a terrific book by Terrence McNally, who wrote several plays about theater making, including It’s Only a Play, And Away We Go, and Golden Age. McNally captures just the right impression of amateur theatrics, focusing on people for whom theater might not be central to their lives but absolutely necessary.

Composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens, who have previously collaborated on such musicals as Once on This Island, Anastasia, and Ragtime, contribute lovely songs that celebrate theater (“Going Up” “First Rehearsal”), examine everyday Irish life (“The Streets of Dublin,” “Princess”), and delve into the power, and intolerance, of religion (“Books,” “Our Father,” “Confession”). The unerlying theme is professed by Alfie in “Love Who You Love.”

The score, orchestrated by Bruce Coughlin, is performed by conductor Caleb Hoyer on keyboards, Michael Blanco on bass, Justin Rothberg on guitars and mandolins, and Tereasa Payne on flutes, Irish flutes, recorders, and pennywhistles, playing at the back of the stage balcony; they are joined by many of the actors on acoustic guitar, accordion, violin, drum head (which also double as plates of invisible food), and other instruments on Doyle’s thrust set, where the cast constantly rearranges chairs and other furniture as the story moves from the church and the bus to a bar and a kitchen. At times it is like Doyle is navigating everyone in an adult version of musical chairs.

Parsons is an exceptionally warm and amiable actor, whether he is playing a man throwing a snarky gay party in The Boys in the Band, a gentle soul living in his own alternate reality in Harvey, or the Supreme Being himself in An Act of God. His natural demeanor is so appealing in A Man of No Importance — which debuted at Lincoln Center in 2002 with Roger Rees as Alfie, based on the 1994 film starring Albert Finney — that you want to be his friend, even giving him a break when he occasionally loses his Irish accent. Throughout the show, several actors go into the audience, taking a seat, walking up the aisle, or hanging out in a landing; I was actually disappointed when Alfie did not come up to my row, but I did get a close-up look at Moody and his guitar.

Although all casts attempt to achieve this, this one feels like an inclusive family, with Oscar/Tony nominee and Emmy winner Winningham and Tony nominee Shively standing out; at the talkback, a half dozen of the other actors spoke about how well they were getting along and that Parsons might be the star but he insists on being treated just like everyone else. Saying goodbye to CSC, Doyle makes the audience feel that they’re all part of something important as well.

ASSASSINS

e ( Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Tavi Gevinson) and Sara Jane Moore (Judy Kuhn) share their distaste for President Ford and KFC in Assassins (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ASSASSINS
Classic Stage Company
Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 30 [Ed. note: All performances have been canceled as of January 25]
www.classicstage.org

The late Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in November at the age of ninety-one, is currently represented in New York City by two musicals, Marianne Elliott’s stirring, gender-switching Broadway revival of the beloved Company at the Jacobs and John Doyle’s far less exciting adaptation of the much less worshiped Assassins at Classic Stage.

Kicking off his final year as artistic director at Classic Stage, Doyle, who began there in 2016, won a Tony for directing Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd in 2005; he also staged a Tony-winning revival of Company in 2006 and helmed Merrily We Roll Along at Watermill in 2008. Despite his familiarity with Sondheim, his Assassins, which sold out almost instantly and has been extended through January 30, misses its mark. [Ed. note: All performances have been canceled because of a Covid outbreak in the company on January 25.]

The show was initially scheduled to open in March 2020, so anticipation only built higher during the pandemic lockdown before it eventually began its run in November 2021. Although no tickets are available, you might be able to grab a cancellation because of the omicron variant; the night I went, there were more than twenty vacant seats, a sign of the times.

Assassins brings together nine men and women who have tried to kill the president of the United States (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The musical, featuring a book by librettist and TV writer John Weidman, who also collaborated with Sondheim on Pacific Overtures and Road Show, gives nine men and women the opportunity to defend their attempts to assassinate the president of the United States. The carnival atmosphere is facilitated by the Proprietor (Eddie Cooper), on a stage jutting out with the audience on three sides. In addition to directing, Doyle designed the set, which boasts the American flag spread across the floor under a large monitor on which photos of the presidents are posted like targets.

“Hey, pal — feelin’ blue? / Don’t know what to do? / Hey, pal — / I mean you — / Yeah. C’mere and kill a president,” the Proprietor sings in “Everybody’s Got the Right,” continuing, “No job? Cupboard bare? / One room, no one there? / Hey, pal, don’t despair — / You wanna shoot a president? / C’mon and shoot a president . . . Some guys / think they can’t be winners. / First prize / often goes to rank beginners.”

A terrific cast can’t breathe enough life into the choppy narrative, which goes back and forth among the assassins, who are joined by an ensemble of backup singers and musicians. Ethan Slater stands out as the Balladeer, a kind of traveling troubadour, and is almost unrecognizable as Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed JFK. Judy Kuhn adds comic relief as Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at Gerald Ford in September 1975, a few weeks after Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Tavi Gevinson) botched her attempt at the Nixon pardoner. Steven Pasquale tries to steal the show as Lincoln killer John Wilkes Booth but is overly dominant while Adam Chanler-Berat is barely there as Ronald Reagan shooter John Hinckley Jr.

Steven Pasquale plays John Wilkes Booth in Sondheim-Weidman revival at Classic Stage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Will Swenson is well-educated James A. Garfield murderer Charles Guiteau; Wesley Taylor is naturalized citizen Giuseppe Zangara, who fired at FDR but killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak instead; Andy Grotelueschen (now replaced by Danny Wolohan) is Samuel Byck, who tried to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House to kill Richard Nixon; and Brandon Uranowitz is anarchist Leon Czolgosz, who shot and killed William McKinley in 1901. The show perhaps works best as an argument for stronger gun control laws.

The assassins are all in period costumes except for Byck, who wears a Santa suit; the ensemble of singers and musicians (Brad Giovanine, Bianca Horn, Whit K. Lee, Rob Morrison, and Katrina Yaukey) wear red, white, or blue jumpsuits. (The effective costumes are by Ann Hould-Ward, with wigs by Charles G. LaPointe.) Some of the cast also have American flag masks that they whisk off when they sing.

Presidential assassins make their case in off-Broadway musical (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The musical numbers, which range from “Gun Song” and “Unworthy of Your Love” to “Another National Anthem” and “Something Just Broke” and have unconventional orchestrations, don’t stick with you; they simply come and go. The idea itself is a grand one; watching these assassins mix and mingle is at times fascinating, but there is little flow to the book, which too often wilts or becomes confusing as it tries to neither celebrate nor revile the characters, who chose a dangerous path to change the country and their own place in it.

“So many people confuse the right to happiness with the right to the pursuit of happiness,” Sondheim said in Classic Stage’s 2021 “Tell the Story” virtual gala, in which he and Weidman relate the show to the January 6 insurrection, during which the lives of the vice president and the Speaker of the House were under threat. Even given the newfound relevance, though, the show feels dated.

To find out more about Assassins, you can check out Classic Stage’s ongoing Classic Conversations series, which during the lockdown featured members of the cast and crew discussing the revival.

CLASSIC CONVERSATIONS

classic conversations

Who: George Takei, André De Shields, Becky Ann Baker, Dylan Baker, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Heather Headley, John Doyle
What: Livestreamed discussions about theater in the age of Covid-19
Where: Classic Stage YouTube channel
When: Thursdays, July 16 – August 13, free (donations accepted), 6:00
Why: Now that Classic Stage has concluded its twelve-part “Classic Conversations” series with the performers in the postponed revival of Assassins, the company is turning to other actors with ties to the troupe and its artistic director, John Doyle. The lineup features George Takei on July 16, Tony winner André De Shields on July 23, husband-and-wife team Becky Ann Baker and Dylan Baker on July 30, Obie winner Quincy Tyler Bernstine on August 6, and Tony and Grammy winner Heather Headley on August 13, all moderated by the Tony-winning Doyle. After the livestream, the talks are archived on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

CLASSIC CONVERSATIONS: ASSASSINS

assassins

Who: Eddie Cooper, Ethan Slater, Steven Pasquale, Bianca Horn, John Doyle
What: Online conversations and performances
Where: Classic Stage Company Facebook and YouTube pages
When: Thursdays at 6:00, free but donations accepted
Why: This spring, Classic Stage Company was all set for a highly anticipated all-star revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins when the coronavirus shut down theaters. To keep audiences connected and raise much-needed funds, CSC has started Classic Conversations, a series of talks on Thursday nights at 6:00 with artistic director John Doyle and members of the cast of Assassins; the program is streamed for free on Facebook and YouTube. It began on April 16 with Brandon Uranowitz and continued April 23 with Will Swenson, April 30 with Adam Chanler-Berat, and May 7 with Tavi Gevinson. On May 14, Doyle speaks with Eddie Cooper, followed by Ethan Slater on May 21, Steven Pasquale on May 28, Bianca Horn on June 4, Wesley Taylor on June 11, Andy Grotelueschen on June 18, Brad Giovanine, Katrina Yaukey, Whit K. Lee, and Rob Morrison on June 25, and Judy Kuhn on July 2. CSC plans to mount Assassins onstage once it is safe for everyone to return to theaters, but in the meantime this is a great way to keep in touch.

DRACULA / FRANKENSTEIN

Kate Hamill wrote and stars in gender-flipping Dracula at Classic Stage, playing Renfield (photo by Joan Marcus)

Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 15, $82-$127
classicstage.org

In 1971, Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein movie pit the Transylvanian count against the lab-created Creature, both introduced to film audiences in 1931 in separate horror films that started long-running franchises. The pair of ghouls, along with the Wolf Man, also appeared together in Charles Barton’s 1948 comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. And now Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster are not face-to-face but back-to-back in Classic Stage’s creepy double feature, new adaptations of each running in repertory through March 15.

Kate Hamill, whose previous literary adaptations include wonderfully imaginative versions of Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Vanity Fair, has had a helluva lotta fun with Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic horror novel. She calls it “a bit of a feminist revenge fantasy, really,” infusing it with a healthy dose of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a somewhat Marxist view of class struggle while keeping the plot firmly in the bloodline of the original.

Dracula (Matthew Amendt) is put in the background of this version; in fact, all the men are secondary to the women. Hamill’s great invention is gender-switching the characters, beginning with the mad Renfield (Hamill) and most spectacularly with the vampire hunter Van Helsing (Jessica Frances Dukes); the first is now a husband-murdering woman in a lunatic asylum, the second a powerful, leather-clad female punk cowboy (think Faith from Buffy and Angel). The plot proceeds mostly according to Stoker, with a few condensations and sly alterations: Renfield is cared for by the boringly plain Doctor George Seward (Matthew Saldivar), who’s engaged to the mischievous Lucy Westenra (Jamie Ann Romero), whose BFF is the pregnant Mina Harker (Kelley Curran). Mina’s husband, solicitor Jonathan Harker (Michael Crane), has gone to Transylvania on business. The conversation sounds contemporary from the outset, albeit couched in semi-Victorian diction as when Lucy teases Mina that Jonathan probably has “some Bavarian hausfrau. Some Slovakian slattern. Some Czech chippy” there. “I cannot blame him, Mina. You have gone rather to seed,” Lucy says, poking at Mina’s belly. “That’s the baby, you cow,” Mina responds. “Excuses, excuses,” Lucy says. Mina: “I’ll remind you how amusing that is when you are in the same condition.” Lucy: “One step at a time, please.” Mina: “It happens faster than you think. One day, you’re a schoolgirl, the next —” Lucy: “A hideous bloated old broodmare —” Mina: “— condemned to a life with no greater excitement than visiting a horrible little trollop on the seaside!”

Jonathan Harker (Michael Crane) has no idea what’s in store for him from Drusilla (Laura Baranik) and Marilla (Lori Laing) in new Dracula adaptation (photo by Joan Marcus)

Dracula is essentially a minor character, dressed in white instead of the traditional black (the costumes are by Robert Perdziola), not as demonic as he is often depicted; rather, his strength is frankly sexual and class-based. He is protected by two henchwomen, the lustful vampires Drusilla (Laura Baranik), named after a Buffy character, and Marilla (Lori Laing), perhaps named after the spinster from Anne of Green Gables. As Dracula slowly turns Mina into the walking dead, Dr. Seward refuses to believe in any such nefarious doings, and intrepid vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing arrives on the scene, ready to fight, quickly winning the formerly meek Mina to her side as they team up to rescue Jonathan and kill the count.

Directed by Sarna Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George, Little Women), this Dracula is a bit scattershot, all over the place as it investigates feminist themes from the Victorian era to today, as well as the emergence of working- and middle-class power versus the landed aristocracy. Renfield is a woman dealing with daddy issues, projecting her lust and religious zeal onto the unavailable Dracula, while the heroes are Mina, a twist on Buffy sweetly played by Curran (The Winter’s Tale, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore), and Dr. Van Helsing, portrayed with fearless panache by Dukes (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Yellowman). Classic Stage artistic director John Doyle’s sparse set is often empty except for when beds are rolled onstage, keeping the focus on the characters themselves.

Hamill’s sense of humor shines through as she toys with genre conventions across two hours and twenty minutes with intermission. When Jonathan first meets the count upon arriving at Dracula’s deserted mansion, he says, “I was beginning to think there wasn’t a soul in the place!” This Dracula also is more aware of class warfare than usual, telling Jonathan, “If control is shifting to the masses, than I must be of the masses. I must not rule from the castle on the hill anymore. Instead, I must become a common man, anonymous; — welcomed everywhere, and remembered nowhere. A man — rather — like you.” It’s a battle of the sexes in which men, whether supernatural or human, don’t stand a chance.

Stephanie Berry and Rob Morrison star in Tristan Bernays’s Frankenstein at Classic Stage (photo by Joan Marcus)

Tristan Bernays is far more faithful to the original story in his stark adaptation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s anonymously published 1818 epistolary novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. The streamlined production features two actors, Stephanie Berry as Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, and Rob Morrison singing songs, playing guitar, contributing sound effects, narrating sections, and moving around the furniture, which includes a long table, a large mirror, and several small pails. (This set also is designed by Doyle.) As with Hamill’s Dracula, Bernays’s Frankenstein plays with gender identity as it explores issues of God versus man as creator. Shortly after being brought to life, the Creature starts learning language and finding its place in the world, like a child quickly growing into adulthood. But the more it understands, the less it likes.

The Creature (Stephanie Berry) grows more and more curious in Classic Stage adaptation of Gothic novel (photo by Joan Marcus)

The narration is taken directly from the source material, with added dialogue. “What if — What if I failed to speak to him in gentle tongue? What if though blind he sensed withal my horrid shape? What if his children came back swift and ruined all my plans? What if — What if —” the Creature says as he enters the home where a blind man lives. Shortly after leaving the house, the Creature looks up at the stars and screams out, “Why? Why did you mould me but for misery? Am I to never feel a friendly touch? A kindly look? Love? Compassion? Why did you make me so? Why?” The Creature ultimately confronts Dr. Frankenstein, his wife, Elizabeth, and their son, William, and declares his need for a companion, leading to a tragic conclusion.

Even at a mere eighty minutes, the play, directed by Timothy Douglas (Radio Golf, Etiquette of Vigilance), drags on. The scenes don’t flow easily into one another, feeling ragged and disjointed. Berry (Gem of the Ocean, For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad) has some fine moments as the Creature, but the story and pace can get confusing, while Morrison (Avenue Q, Nevermore), clearly an excellent musician, seems mostly unnecessary. It ends up being more of a curiosity, which is not enough to sustain it, whether seen as a Gothic tale or a contemporary parable.

CLASSIC STAGE COMPANY: MACBETH

Married couple Nadia Bowers and Corey Stoll star as a sexy married couple with devilish ambitions in Classic Stage adaptation of Macbeth (photo by Joan Marcus)

Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 15, $82-$127
classicstage.org/shows/macbethcsc

Manhattan native and NYU grad Corey Stoll has quickly become a go-to Shakespearean actor in the city, playing Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida in 2016, Brutus in Julius Caesar in 2017, and Iago in Othello in 2018, all for Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte. His easygoing manner brings a compelling humanity to his performances, which also include runs in Law & Order: LA, House of Cards, The Strain, and The Deuce. And that humanity is again evident as he stars as the title character in John Doyle’s streamlined adaptation of the Bard’s Macbeth, continuing at Classic Stage through December 15.

Doyle’s spare set is a rectangular platform with a large wooden throne at one end; above it is a balcony. The actors are always visible, either onstage or standing in the back, watching and waiting. They are dressed in Ann Hould-Ward’s dark Tartan costumes, although it is difficult to tell the individual clans apart or when an actor is playing a different role, as several have multiple parts without costume changes. (The witches are played by most of the company, not a trio of actors.) Lady Macbeth is played by Nadia Bowers (Describe the Night, Life Sucks.), Stoll’s real-life wife, lending a sweet intimacy to their scenes together even as they plot murder most foul. Their sexuality heats up the stage, even as some sly jokes might be a bit much; for example, when Lady Macbeth says, “Come you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full / Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, / Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,” Bowers, sitting on the floor, grabs her crotch in a rather un-Shakespearean manner.

Erik Lochtefeld plays a contemplative Banquo in John Doyle’s Shakespeare adaptation (photo by Joan Marcus)

Barzin Akhavan is a fine Macduff, Erik Lochtefeld a touching Banquo, Tony nominee Mary Beth Peil a quietly regal Duncan, and Raffi Barsoumian a solid Malcolm; the cast also features N’Jameh Camara as Lady Macduff, Barbara Walsh as Ross, and Antonio Michael Woodard as Fleance, but it’s harder for them to establish their characters, who get lost in the shuffle. Tony winner Doyle (Sweeney Todd, Company), the Scottish director who went to school near Cawdor Castle, where much of the play takes place, has trimmed the show to a muddled hundred minutes, sacrificing too much of its necessary building energy as evil ambition overwhelms Macbeth. Even such a flourish as a bowl of water where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth wash the blood off their hands remains onstage too long, going impossibly unseen in front of others.

There are various versions of the Scottish play one can experience now or soon, including the Roundabout’s musical adaptation, Scotland, PA, at the Laura Pels through December 8, the long-running Sleep No More at the McKittrick Hotel, a return engagement of Erica Schmidt’s Red Bull schoolgirl version by the Hunter Theater Project starting in January, and Primary Stages’ Peerless, set in the world of college admissions, next spring. But you won’t go wrong with Stoll, who rises above Doyle’s messy confusion, delivering a compelling and even cathartic Macbeth, who could be any of us, lured in by power. When he says, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee,” we all see it, and consider reaching for its glittering promise.

THE CRADLE WILL ROCK

The poor residents of Steeltown, USA, consider their fate in Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock at Classic Stage (photo by Joan Marcus)

Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 19, $77-$127
classicstage.org

At the end of 2018, Classic Stage Company put on a less-than-compelling version of Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 parable, The Resistible Rise of Arturio Ui; the history of the show, which was not produced in Brecht’s lifetime because of its sociopolitical content, is more interesting than the revival itself. The same can be said of CSC’s current adaptation of Marc Blitzstein’s heavily Brechtian allegory, The Cradle Will Rock. The original production of the 1937 “play in music” about unions and corruption had its own problems with unions and the law, forcing producers Orson Welles (also director) and John Houseman to switch theaters at the last minute and the actors to perform their lines from the audience, since they were not allowed onstage. (Tim Robbins documented the crazy story in his 1999 film Cradle Will Rock.)

Money is hard to come by in Classic Stage revival of The Cradle Will Rock (photo by Joan Marcus)

As with CSC’s Arturio Ui, artistic director John Doyle is unable to convincingly suck us into this Depression-era world. There’s a union drive going on in Steeltown, USA, and the cops are out looking to bust up any public gatherings. The police end up bringing in members of the anti-union Liberty Committee — newspaper head Editor Daily (Ken Barnett), church leader Reverend Salvation (Benjamin Eakeley), musician Yasha (Ian Lowe), artist Dauber (Rema Webb), college president Prexy (Barnett), and college professors Mamie (Sally Ann Triplett), Scoot (Lowe), and Trixie (Kara Mikula) — instead of union organizer Larry Foreman (Tony Yazbeck). They also round up the Moll, a prostitute (Lara Pulver) who is befriended in jail by pharmacist Harry Druggist (Yazbeck). Yes, the names give a clear indication of who the people are, each an archetype, some inspired by such real-life men as Billy Sunday and William Randolph Hearst; one of the detectives is called Dick (Eddie Cooper), and the doctor is Dr. Specialist (Cooper). Steeltown is run by wealthy industrialist Mr. Mister (David Garrison), who formed the Liberty Committee, and his wife, Mrs. Mister (Triplett); seduced by power, they are determined to gain control over the press, the church, the arts, education, the drug companies, the military, the police, and anything else they can get their hands on while dramatically increasing income inequality and the separation of the classes.

Mr. Mister (David Garrison) throws money in the air like he just don’t care in Classic Stage revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

Doyle’s set features numerous small drum containers, mostly yellow and red, that are moved about by the cast in various formations (the cross is awesome) and used as chairs, bringing color to this dank society. There is also a piano that is played by several characters to accompany the singing. The Cradle Will Rock is very much a story for today, but the show, which is primarily sung-through but is not considered a fully fledged musical, feels dated and old-fashioned. “The Liberty Committee has been formed by us to combat socialism, communism, radicalism, and especially unionism, and to uphold the Constitution,” Reverend Salvation says in words that could be a tweet from President Trump. Harry Druggist advises the Moll, “Shall I tell you a secret? / We’re in the same old trade as you.” She replies, “You mean you’re all solictin’?” to which he says, “Not quite, but so to say; / They won’t buy our milkwhite bodies, / So we kinda sell out in some other way — to Mr. Mister.” Those points are starkly relevant today but fail to connect despite a game cast that gives it their all as they interact with the audience and the material.