THEATRE REVIEW: Inclusive production from GroundFloorATX and DeafATXTheatre gives the time between love and loss a mighty voice.
Carolyn O'Brien, Krissy Lemon, John Christopher, and Saúl López in Deaf Austin Theatre & Ground Floor Theatre's, which won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics during its 2002 off-Broadway premiere, is a simple story about a singular event: the failed marriage between Cathy and Jamie. She is a young, aspiring but unaccomplished actress, and he is a young, highly successful first novelist.
Compacted into a single act, accompanied by just a sixpiece all-string orchestra, and built for modest staging,proves that good things come in small packages. But in a show like this – where singing far outweighs dialogue, songs alternate between witty and emotionally wrenching, and the music requires melodic introspection and balls-to-the-wall belting – the performers are at serious risk of whiplash and laryngitis.
In this double-cast collaboration between Ground Floor Theatre and Deaf Austin Theatre, there's a singing Jamie and a signing Cathy onstage, and a signing Jamie and a singing Cathy perched on a platform behind them.
As the Jamies, Christopher and López complete each other. Christopher is a phenomenal singer, but never manages to tap the character's immature, self-absorbed, New York state of mind evident in every lyric, but the wonderfully expressive López does. In"The Schmuel Song," for instance – a pep talk to Cathy to encourage her to follow her dreams in the form of a fairy tale about a tailor too busy to dream – it is López who delivers the requisite playfulness and charm.
Scenic designer Gary Thornsberry establishes locations with a single piece of furniture, time passage is ascertained by costume changes orchestrated by Desiree Humpries, and Amber Whatley's lighting design consists of moderate illumination dramatically accentuated with spotlights.
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