Brevard Culture

Melbourne Civic Theatre mines gold in its charming and funny production of the 46-year old comedy, “Cactus Flower.”

Abe Burrows wrote and directed the Broadway comedy in 1965 (after a play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy), near the high water mark of TV’s then king of situation comedy,”The Dick Van Dyke Show.” So you might expect the safe and simple. But under the direction of Peg Girard, MCT’s trademark good humored naughtiness livens up the show, making it feel fresh and new.

The story concerns an uptight dentist, Julian Winston, who is having an affair with free-spirited Toni. In order to control their relationship, he has told her that he’s married and has three children. Early in the story, Winston decides he wants to marry Toni and thus even stickier subterfuge ensues.

The cast is in top form.

Amber Prine nearly purrs in her baby doll role of Toni Simmons. She’s got a real sweetness which shows nicely on stage. And Michael David Paul…wow…he’s at his comic best in this beatnik role of Igor Sullivan, a next-door writer who befriends Toni. Paul has grown as an actor and exudes ease and confidence.

The funniest visual gags in the show go to Paul and Chandler McRee, who proves the point that there are no small parts.

Randy Caldwell brings out the heightening frustration in poor Dr. Winston, especially when an expensive gift to Toni gets re-gifted to his nurse, Miss Dickinson, the play’s real cactus flower. As the nurse, Tracey Thompson shows some good comic timing and acting strength. She’s a terrific addition to the MCT stage.

Add Linda Lawson to that welcome. Lawson sailed splendidly through high-drama as Big Mama in Surfside’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” earlier this season. Here, as the randy socialite Mrs. Durant, she shows she’s got the comic chops as well.

Gordon Ringer zeroes in on the sleaze as playboy Harvey Greenfield; and Pete Jacobsen is an oily hoot as Latin lover Senor Arturo Sanchez.

While the onstage talent receive their applause, there should also be some big thank-yous to the tech crew and designers. Scenic designer Caroline Osborne and lighting designer Alan Selby have done the impossible — squeezed four locations out of the small MCT space. And sound designer Wendy Reader’s excellent use of music and a variety of speakers moves the action in and out of the acting spaces and establishes mood and time.

MCT has turned into a well-oiled producing machine that keeps churning out the stuff that audiences love. The first weekend was nearly sold out. This is fun, feel-good stuff. Don’t miss out.

SIDE O’ GRITS: “Cactus Flower” runs 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 26 at Melbourne Civic Theatre, 817 E. Strawbridge Ave., Melbourne. $18 to $20. Call 321-723-6935 or visit www.mymct.org.

The Henegar Center for the Arts gets down-home with its foot tapping, knee slapping production of “Pump Boys and Dinettes.”

This is known as a musical revue, which is theater-speak for a concert by fictional characters.
Designed by Don Cross, the setting is an old fashioned gas station/roadside diner, the kind of place where you can have a nice slice of apple pie and a cup of coffee while you get a flat tire changed. Nicely decorated by scenic artist Brighid Reppert, it’s evocative of all the home-spun comfort that you find in the restaurant section of the Cracker Barrel.

But more than music and atmosphere, what you get with this show is the realization that sometimes, the older you grow, the better you get. That’s what long time Brevard theater patrons come away with when they see Deborah Rappa-Crisafulli, one of the stars on stage in this show.

Rappa-Crisafulli, who also choreographs the show and is known primarily as a choreographer, sails easily through the harmony and down-home fun on stage. This woman just keeps on getting better. She’s a fireball of energy in “Be Good or Be Gone.”

That applies also to Lisa-Marie Rhodes, a wonderful young performer who left the area to finish school in the New York City area. Brevard’s theater scene is richer with her return to the area. Her “This Best Man” number is right on target.

Rhodes and Rappa-Crisafulli hit such sweet harmony together in this show, especially the heartwarming “Sister.”

While the rest of the cast don’t have quite the performance chops as the ladies, they have their appeal: Especially acoustic guitarist Joshua Paez who embraces the John C. Reilly within; and David McQuillen Robertson, the cute bass player. Supporting all are keyboardist Luke Rockwell, electric guitarist Wesley Burrough and percussionist Stuart Andrew Collins.

Although more of that Rappa-Crisafulli energy could be used by the rest of the cast, director Michael Thompson and music director Robin Ryon do bring out some good performances. But please, better enunciation…some voice and diction warm-ups. It was difficult to tell what the guys were singing.

“Pump Boys and Dinettes” is by the biggest team of writers you ever saw — John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann. You’d think that a committee that large could come up with some characters and some kind of plot line, even a cliched one.

Oops. Is my bias showing?

SIDE ‘ GRITS: “Pump Boys and Dinettes” performs 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 5, 2012 at the Henegar Center, 625 E. New Haven Ave., Melbourne. $15 to $22. Call 321-723-8698 or visit www.henegar.org.

Melbourne Civic Theatre gets us into a spooky Halloween mood with twists and turns of dreadful deed in Joe DiPietro’s comic thriller, “Art of Murder.”

Set in an artists’ home in rural Connecticut, the play pokes fun at artists, their agents and the sudden cache a dead artist “enjoys.”

Here, it’s Jack Brooks (David Baum) and his wife, Annie Brooks (Sally Contess), who are at odds with the talent they see in one another. They have invited their agent, Vincent Cummings (Chandler McRee) to discuss a project. He arrives shortly after the maid, Kate (Amy Grandey), leaves for the evening.

After Jack retreats for introspection in his isolation tank, Annie convinces Vincent that they’d all be better off without Jack.

It quickly turns into a dark and stormy night…courtesy scenic designer Gary Postlethwait, lighting designer Alan Selby and sound designer Wendy Reader.

This is one of those reviews in which you can’t really say much for fear of ruining the fun in this play that’s filled with so many s-curves you may feel the need of dramamine.

Directed by Peg Girard, the production is one that allows the actors to feast to their fill on the scenery. Indeed, McRee nearly tears it into ropa vieja.

While DiPietro is the one who gave us “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” and “Over the River and Through the Woods,” here, he pays more attention to plot than character. But the actors all have great fun with the action.

Their fun is infectious. The thrills are enough to keep your attention but not so much that you’ll swoon from fright.

SIDE O’ GRITS: “Art of Murder,” on stage through Nov. 20 at Melbourne Civic Theatre, 817 e. Strawbridge Ave., Melbourne. It performs 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. $20 general, $18 seniors/military/students. Call 321-723-6935 or visit www.mymct.org.