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Theater review: Curtains at Coronado Playhouse
Proof that San Diego is a great theater town
Curtains asks the question, "Is there anything deadlier than a critic's pen?"
San Diego really is a great theater town. If it weren’t, a community theater like Coronado Playhouse would be a little bit nuts to put on a show like Kander and Ebb's Curtains, the title of which is just the first of a thousand theater references and/or in-jokes. The closed curtain ends the show, you see, which is how “curtains” became slang for death, and here we have a musical about murder — well, murders — which is also about the staging of a musical, one that boasts about how “Kansas is home!” the way the actual musical Oklahoma! boasts that “Oklahoma’s okay!” A musical that is opening so far off Broadway, it’s in another city (Boston), and one which forces its sophisticated show people to serve up mushy corn pone to the masses. “I put on The Iceman Cometh and nobody cameth!” notes producer Carmen Bernstein (a suitably brassy Ria Carey), who also gets to remind us that “It’s a Business” in song.
She’s right about the business thing of course, which means you need people who love not just theater, but also theater people and their funny little world, if you’re going to do this show. People like Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, who’s investigating the death of the Kansas musical’s talentless star, who has himself done a little community theater (“My Bottom was very well received” — ba-DUM), and who thinks “putting on a musical has got to be the most fulfilling thing that a person can do.”
Maybe so, but it’s also tough going, as the songs remind us. There are mean-spirited critics to contend with (“What Kind of Man?”), hackneyed rhymes to avoid (“I Miss the Music”), and numbers to work and re-work (“In the Same Boat”). Still, it’s all worth it, because as “Show People” reminds us, We can't picture being anything but show people!/Civilians find the whole thing quite bizarre!/But that hop in our hearts/When the overture starts/Helps us know how lucky we are! Sometimes, that funny little world is funnier than others — as when the cast and crew gather to mourn the deceased, but also to do a little mourning exercise. Other times, it gets to be a bit much, as when a pair of would be lovers can’t help but think of their budding romance as “A Tough Act to Follow,” to the point where a tender ditty morphs into an all-out showstopper.
Even there, the cast here is up for it — though both they and the show could stand a little tightening here and there. Timing is everything in comedy, and someone once said something about brevity and wit. Mostly, however, it’s an evening of good humor and pleasant surprises: Espie Ignacio's’s rich singing, Nick Siljander’s deft movements, “I Miss the Music”’s emotional pull.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Theater review: Curtains at Coronado Playhouse
Proof that San Diego is a great theater town
Theater review: Curtains at Coronado Playhouse
Proof that San Diego is a great theater town
Curtains asks the question, "Is there anything deadlier than a critic's pen?"
San Diego really is a great theater town. If it weren’t, a community theater like Coronado Playhouse would be a little bit nuts to put on a show like Kander and Ebb's Curtains, the title of which is just the first of a thousand theater references and/or in-jokes. The closed curtain ends the show, you see, which is how “curtains” became slang for death, and here we have a musical about murder — well, murders — which is also about the staging of a musical, one that boasts about how “Kansas is home!” the way the actual musical Oklahoma! boasts that “Oklahoma’s okay!” A musical that is opening so far off Broadway, it’s in another city (Boston), and one which forces its sophisticated show people to serve up mushy corn pone to the masses. “I put on The Iceman Cometh and nobody cameth!” notes producer Carmen Bernstein (a suitably brassy Ria Carey), who also gets to remind us that “It’s a Business” in song.
She’s right about the business thing of course, which means you need people who love not just theater, but also theater people and their funny little world, if you’re going to do this show. People like Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, who’s investigating the death of the Kansas musical’s talentless star, who has himself done a little community theater (“My Bottom was very well received” — ba-DUM), and who thinks “putting on a musical has got to be the most fulfilling thing that a person can do.”
Maybe so, but it’s also tough going, as the songs remind us. There are mean-spirited critics to contend with (“What Kind of Man?”), hackneyed rhymes to avoid (“I Miss the Music”), and numbers to work and re-work (“In the Same Boat”). Still, it’s all worth it, because as “Show People” reminds us, We can't picture being anything but show people!/Civilians find the whole thing quite bizarre!/But that hop in our hearts/When the overture starts/Helps us know how lucky we are! Sometimes, that funny little world is funnier than others — as when the cast and crew gather to mourn the deceased, but also to do a little mourning exercise. Other times, it gets to be a bit much, as when a pair of would be lovers can’t help but think of their budding romance as “A Tough Act to Follow,” to the point where a tender ditty morphs into an all-out showstopper.
Even there, the cast here is up for it — though both they and the show could stand a little tightening here and there. Timing is everything in comedy, and someone once said something about brevity and wit. Mostly, however, it’s an evening of good humor and pleasant surprises: Espie Ignacio's’s rich singing, Nick Siljander’s deft movements, “I Miss the Music”’s emotional pull.
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