SCERA’s production of “Singin’ in the Rain” is a solid run at a show that is very difficult to produce.

It began life as a movie, and a fondly remembered one, so it has big shoes to fill. But more problematic is the show’s structure. As a film, it could have a million scene changes; as a stage musical, that means trouble. Veteran local director Jerry Elison has his cast and crew working like beavers to get those sets moved around, but no matter how fast they are, the scene changes are just too long and too frequent. (Sometimes the lights are only up for two minutes before they’re down and everything’s in a flurry again.)

Overlooking the issues inherent in the show itself, this staging is quite entertaining. Daniel R. Aldous plays Don Lockwood, a silent-film star who, in 1927, finds himself grappling with the new “talkies.” He makes the transition well enough; his co-star (whom the studio is passing off as his real-life fiancee), Lina Lamont (Afton Ferguson), does not fare so well. Her speaking voice is terrible and she’s not the brightest star in the sky.

Fortunately, Don has become involved with stage actress Kathy Selden (Melinda Stailey), who speaks and sings quite beautifully. Much to the chagrin of a jealous Lina, the studio dubs Kathy’s voice over hers, and Lina just has to lip-sync.

Aldous is a better singer and dancer than he is an actor, though he’s likable regardless of what he’s doing. (He comes off as rather snotty in his first scenes with Kathy, yet still keeps audience sympathy.) His partnership with David Whitlock as crazy friend Cosmo is remarkable, particularly in the “Fit as a Fiddle” number, which has some truly impressive choreography (by Sunny Claitor). Whitlock shows great energy and skill in his “Make ‘Em Laugh” sequence, too.

Stailey is beautiful and strong as Kathy. As for Ferguson as Lina, many of the jokes about Lina’s awful voice are harmed by the fact that Ferguson is doing a voice that simply isn’t bad enough. The accent ranges from Brooklyn to Georgia, and should be a lot squeakier and more annoying to get the right comic effect.

Shining in smaller roles are Jeremy Young as the diction coach (the victim of Cosmo and Don’s rambunctious “Moses Supposes” bit), and Melissa Benson as a star-struck Hollywood reporter. The filmed sequences are extremely authentic-looking and impressive, too.

One thing can certainly be said of BYU’s “My Fair Lady”: At three hours and 15 minutes in length, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth. (By comparison, last year’s production at Hale Center Theater Orem was a full 45 minutes shorter.)

While length is not necessarily a problem, it is if it’s not justified. Most of “My Fair Lady’s” problems are unavoidable without doing some cutting, as Lerner and Loewe, though great songwriters, sometimes just didn’t know when to stop. No show needs a five-minute song-and-dance number to tell us that someone is getting married, especially if that someone is a minor character and his bride-to-be is not even in the play.

BYU’s faithful, traditional staging, directed by Marion J. Bentley, lies mostly dormant until snobbish Prof. Henry Higgins (Casey Griffiths) gets Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Mindy Smoot; double-cast with Korianne Johnson) to his home to teach her proper diction and grammar. When the servants, moving in amusing clockwork-style choreography, begin singing “Poor Professor Higgins” while Henry tries to tutor an exhausted Eliza, the show starts to wake up. With the next scene, in which Henry successfully passes off Eliza as an educated woman at the racetrack, the show comes marvelously to life.

In fact, the play is never more entertaining than in that scene. Mindy Smoot, already beautiful and possessed of a fine singing voice, does some great comedy here, using Cockney grammar and slang but speaking in a perfectly respectable accent. Her demeanor is that of a Stepford wife, all the life sucked out of her and replaced with false social class. It’s hysterical, and backed up well by the ensemble of stiff caricatures who make up the supporting cast.

Casey Griffiths plays the snipe-tongued Prof. Higgins for all he’s worth, earning laughs without clowning and generally handling the high-society dignity of the character very well, considering how young the actor is. Donald Allison as Henry’s friend Colonel Pickering is not a step behind him. Joshua Meyer gets only two real scenes as Freddy Eynsford Hill, but in them proves he has the best singing voice in the cast. Reyna Ricks is also notably strong as Henry’s no-nonsense mother.

The old-style American musical is not everyone’s cup of tea, but this incarnation of “My Fair Lady,” once it gets going, provides several hours’ worth of sentimental entertainment.

In a rare instance of a local theater recognizing its limitations and putting them to use, rather than over-exerting itself and falling flat, Little London Dinner Theater uses a small cast, tiny stage and minimal sets to present a perfectly adequate version of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

In so doing, their no-frills “Joseph” (directed by Bob Manning, who staged a similar production at UVSC) is actually original. It’s not just the same old show with a few embellishments for the sake of being different; it’s actually a new concept. Their Joseph isn’t chiseled or fake-tanned, and neither is their show.

The premise is that the troupe Little London hired to perform, the Blaire, Mo., Regional Players (that’s a “Waiting for Guffman” reference, by the way), didn’t show up. So now, a group of nuns providing pre-show entertainment have to do the show themselves, with their three male crew members helping out.

Since we’ve seen “Joseph” before, watching people TRY to perform it is almost as much fun as people actually performing it. And fortunately, the jokes surrounding the cast’s supposed inexperience are kept to a minimum; in general, they just do the show straight, albeit it with far fewer props and costumes than we’re used to. Sure, we know the reason for the minimalism is the expense and resources involved. But we have no trouble buying their explanation for it, too, since it’s so much fun that way.

Seth Child, David Patrick Nugent and Aaron DeJesus, who at various times have stolen whatever UVSC shows they’ve performed in, perform as Joseph, Jacob and Pharaoh, among other roles. (DeJesus’ Pharaoh is hilariously Cuban, by the way, a welcome change from the Pharaoh-as-Elvis shtick that we’ve seen so many times.)

Six nuns play the eleven brothers. (Six women playing eleven people is funny in itself.) Traci Brewster and Jessie Clark are the amiable narrators, with Brewster also playing the deliciously vampy Mrs. Potiphar.

Not everything works in this adaptation. With a small number of singers — and women, too, instead of husky-voiced men — the big numbers don’t ring out like they should. The small space occasionally leads to static stage pictures. Little London’s new lighting system could use some more juice, too (the stage is too dark too often), and the sound system still has some bugs in it.

But the best thing about the show is this: That end-of-show “megamix,” which is essentially just a 10-minute curtain call, is gone. Viva la difference!

It’s the silly characters who make Desert Star Playhouse’s “The Three Musketeers: All for One and Fun for All” a successful bit of lunacy.

There’s MiLady DeWinter (Annette Wright), a villain with mildly evil goals who vamps trashily as she tries to help Roquefort (Joel Wallin) gain control of France. Roquefort himself is over-the-top bad, and Wallin has quite a healthy maniacal laugh on him. He is joined by Igor-like sidekick Grizel (Ed Farnsworth), whose ears stick out and who walks like a slinky.

Then there’s the three musketeers. Aramis (Scott Holman) is fey and mincing, Porthos (Spencer Ashby) is old and forgetful, and Athos (voice of Ed Farnsworth) is a puppet. Their quest is to throw the flamboyant king Louis (Steven Fehr) out of office and replace him with the rightful heir, his twin brother Philippe (Fehr again). They want to make sure Spanish Princess Isabella (Kathleen Richardson), who rolls her r’s like there’s no tomorrow, doesn’t marry the wrong guy, too. They’re joined by D’Artagnan (Matt Kohler), a dashing musketeer wannabe with the hots for local girl Constance (JulieAnn Christensen).

Ed Farnsworth has a third role as Constance’s hideous mother, making him the show’s MVP — though Steven Fehr comes in a close second in his twin-brother roles. Scott Holman, normally the best reason to go to the Desert Star, has a role in this show that doesn’t allow him much stage time. He makes the most of it, though, and gets one of the best lines: When Roquefort says during a sword fight, “I shall miss our little tete-a-tetes,” Holman’s Aramis replies, “I never say no to a pair of tetes!” (Don’t worry, that’s as naughty as the show gets.)

Annette Wright and Spencer Ashby, both “Saturday’s Voyeur” veterans, are serviceable in the main show, but even better in the post-show olio, when they play a white-trash couple who insult each other on TV. (The olio also has Christensen, Wright and Richardson — shamefully underused in the show — singing a hysterically shrill “Whistle While You Work.”)

The fight choreography, by Joel Wallin, is quite good, as is JulieAnn Christensen’s dance choreography. (The musketeers’ flouncy “Noble Sons of France” number is a hoot.)

It’s not the Desert Star’s best show ever; the laughs are consistent, but rarely of the gut-busting variety. It is, nonetheless, as fun for all as the title suggests.

Let’s face it, a quintet of nuns singing merry cabaret tunes and dancing like Broadway engenues is automatically funny.

That’s the idea behind “Nunsense,” now playing at the Little Brown Theatre. The small theater is a good setting for the small, simple show, and it means the performers don’t have to use microphones to be heard. (Still, the pre-recorded music could be louder at times — most of those nuns do a fine job belting out the lyrics, sometimes drowning out the accompaniment altogether.)

The Sisters of Hoboken, N.J., are in a dire situation. Seems their cook, Sister Julia, Child of God, made some bad soup that sent 52 of their sisters on to their eternal reward. The convent could afford to bury 48 of them before the Mother Superior (Pat Bartlett) spend the rest of the money on a DVD player.

The remaining four ex-nuns are currently in the convent freezer, waiting until the sister can raise enough money to bury them. “Nunsense” is their fund-raiser, a little musical talent show featuring the Mother Superior, her right-hand nun Sister Hubert (Miriam Latour), dim-witted Sister Merry Amnesia (Lynette Webb), quiet Sister Leo (Chaundra Wilson), and street-wise understudy Sister Robert Anne (Wendy Asay).

It’s an outrageous, perhaps even appalling, premise for a show, of course, but it’s all in fun. “Nunsense” was written by Dan Goggin, himself a Catholic, and all the jokes about nuns and convents are written with love behind them.

Topping the cast is Lynette Webb as Sister Amnesia, who came to the convent a few years ago without a memory, a crucifix having fallen on her head. She grins with a wild cluelessness that is hilarious to watch.

All of the cast is strong and committed to their goofiness. Pat Bartlett, as the Mother Superior, was stumbling over almost every line on the second night of performances, which causes a problem, since she’s the MC. Still, one assumes she’ll improve as time goes on, and her prim, owlish character is a delight already, especially during a hysterical scene in which she accidentally gets high.

The ever-changing lighting design does an excellent job in making the small stage not seem too static, and in adding to the overall energy of the show. There are slow moments — a film called “Nunsmoke,” produced by the sisters, doesn’t add much — but things generally are brisk.

Witty lyrics and a light-hearted demeanor make this a fine, funny show, for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

“The Foreigner,” that farcical community-theater favorite, is back for another go-round at Hale Center Theater Orem. If it’s your sixth time to see this show, you’ll be glad to know it’s nearly as funny as the first time. If it’s your first time … well, I don’t know what that’s like, because this was my sixth time.

British military guy Froggy LeSueur (Dave Hanson, also director) is visiting Georgia to do some maneuvers with the Yanks. He’s brought along Charlie (Mike Wisland), his painfully shy cuckold friend who needs a few days’ vacation after dealing with his wife’s hospitalization.

Froggy puts Charlie in the hands of old widow Betty Meeks (Kathy Llewellyn), a down-home gal who owns a rural fishing lodge and delights in the simple life. Knowing his friend is terrified at having to communicate with strangers for three days, Froggy tells Betty that Charlie is from an exotic country and doesn’t speak any English. To try talking to him would only embarrass him, so it’s best not to try, he says.

And there’s your comic conceit: people think a man can’t understand them, so they’re not afraid to have private conversations in his presence. Soon all the lodge’s inhabitants have bared their souls to Charlie and the audience: Former debutante and current basket case Catherine Simms (Marydee Potter) is pregnant by her fiance, the slick Reverend David Marshall Lee (Mitch Hall; double-cast with John Lundwall). David, meanwhile, is conspiring to make Catherine’s doltish brother Ellard (Matt Clayton) seem dumber than he is. David’s redneck pal Owen Musser (Larson Holyoak) is up to no good, too, and is especially upset at the presence of a “foreigner.” For dark and sinister reasons, David and Owen are bent on getting a hold of Betty’s property and fishing lodge.

It’s a fine situation indeed, exploited to all its great comic potential. Ellard gets to feel smart by “teaching” English words to Charlie, and Charlie gets to use his previously untapped ingenuity to help good triumph and make evil look foolish.

The Hale Center isn’t double-casting its comedies these days, and may the saints be praised for it. Single-casting allows for more rehearsal time and helps the cast work together as a unit — absolutely essential in a comedy. It shows in the performances.

This ensemble is very strong, overall. Mitch Hall is so unctuous and smarmy as Reverend David that you know he’s either a snake in the grass or about to be summoned directly to heaven. Kathy Llewellyn is sweet as Betty, though a bit over-the-top at times; no matter how dim you are, you wouldn’t get literally AN INCH AWAY from a foreigner’s face when you yell to help him understand English.

The biggest laughs are earned by Matt Clayton, who proves that the funniest role in this play is not Charlie, but Ellard. Clayton plays him as a well-meaning simpleton, energetic but not hyper, and extremely entertaining to watch. Which accurately describes the show as a whole, in fact.

“The Odd Couple,” one of Neil Simon’s simplest and least shticky comedies, is still entertaining more than 30 years after its debut, as currently demonstrated at the Little Brown Theatre in Springville.

Full of snappy one-liners and basic comedy devices (the title says it all; opposites are funny), the play is about recently divorced slob Oscar Madison (W. Bill Brown, Jr.) and his persnickety clean-freak friend Felix Ungar (Dane Allred). During the weekly poker game at Oscar’s apartment, Felix shows up, despondent: His wife is divorcing him. By the end of the first act (in which all the characters are rather irritatingly angry and flustered with one another), Felix is moving in with Oscar.

He wreaks havoc on Oscar’s slovenly lifestyle, constantly cleaning up and insisting the poker guys use coasters. Oscar’s annoyance at Felix’s obsessive-compulsiveness reaches the boiling point when British birds Gwen (Dana Campbell) and Cecily (MinD Jensen) come over for dinner and all Felix can do is weep about his ex-wife.

The scene with the women is the highlight in this production, as both actresses are infectiously giggly and bring a lot to the show. Brown and Allred do quite well as Oscar and Felix, too. Their comedy chemistry together isn’t as fine-tuned as it might be, but as individual characters, they’re spot-on.

Also well-cast is Kevin Macklay as poker buddy Murray. He’s the very picture of disheveled bumptiousness, and a treat to watch.

A minor quibble with the play’s time period: I don’t know what it is. It was written in the ’60s, and Gwen and Cecily’s outfits are clearly from that era. But some of the dialogue has been updated (particularly where prices of things are concerned), and various elements around the apartment like CDs and a Garfield poster indicate a modern setting. More communication between the director, set designers and costumers is probably in order. (Probably no one will be bothered by such a small thing; we mention it merely out of duty.)

The show has peaks and valleys; one suspects it’s the sort of production that may vary in quality from night to night. Overall, though, it’s as Neil Simon intended it: amusing, at times laugh-out-loud funny, and a day-brightener no matter what.

The lead role in the 1950s fish-out-of-water comedy “No Time for Sergeants” was originated by Andy Griffith, and you can picture him saying the lines in his gentle Southern drawl.

Those are big Air Force boot to fill, especially with the main character, Will Stockdale, acting as narrator and appearing in every single scene.

The Hale Centre Theatre West Valley’s production is double-cast, but the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday crew is led by David Stensrud, who proves himself unquestionably up to the task. Wide-eyed and belly-voiced, Stensrud is a large and imposing figure — a perfect fit for the hayseed Stockdale who gets drafted into the Air Force and rises to the top despite rarely having a clue what’s going on. Stockdale isn’t dumb; he’s just naive and backwards. Stensrud plays the role with full vigor, making standard lines and situations funny again with an occasional effortless twist on the delivery.

In the beginning, Stockdale is drafted away from his hound dog and his house-bound father and sent off to be classified. Without meaning to, he runs afoul of swaggering hot-head Irvin Blanchard (Rusty Bringhurst), and becomes defender and friend to bespectacled nerd-boy Ben Whitledge (Eric Armstrong).

Sgt. King (Kevin Cottam; normally played in this cast by Ron Johnson), who seeks to make no waves with his superiors, puts Stockdale on latrine duty. Unfamiliar with military ways, Stockdale sees this as an honor and gets King in trouble when he tells the captain (Will Phillips) that he’s been working on the toilets all week. The captain threatens to strip King of his rank of Stockdale, now a week behind the other recruits, doesn’t pass the classification tests.

Then there’s more comedy with Stockdale breezing his way through the various psychological and physical exams without even trying, leading up to the first-act finale, which has him unintentionally ruining things for King and Whitledge, his only two friends.

The second act, oddly, takes a different turn. The conflict set up before intermission is more or less ignored, as the three go on to gunnery school and people wind up being decorated heroes without actually doing anything.

It’s an uncluttered comedy, very straight-forward in its plot and free of preaching or moralizing. It’s not a satire of the armed forces, though it could be played that way, what with Stockdale becoming a mover and shaker without knowing what he’s doing. It’s just a comedy, pure and simple, and an enjoyable one at that.

The 1999 Broadway hit “Art” makes a grand regional debut at Pioneer Theatre Company, easily demonstrating why the show was so popular in New York.

It’s a deceptively simple comedy about a well-off Frenchman named Serge (Ian Stuart) who spends 200,000 francs on a painting that is nothing more than a white background with some diagonal white brushstrokes across it — not much of a painting, it would seem, and certainly not worth $200,000.

That’s what Serge’s good friend Marc (William Whitehead) thinks, anyway. A classical thinker not fond of the modernist movement, he bluntly calls Serge’s purchase “[excrement].” This leads to an argument: Serge is pretentious for pretending to love a painting simply because it’s a status symbol, and Marc is narrow-minded for refusing to accept the possibility that Serge might actually like this painting.

Marc goes to their mutual friend Yvan (Craig Bockhorn), a pudgy, newly engaged nebbish whom Marc is certain will agree with him about the painting. Yvan, predictably, straddles the fence, but tends to land more on the side of thinking the painting is at least somewhat valuable.

So there are the three positions: worth $200,000, OK as a modernist work, and [excrement]. From this simple Seinfeldian set-up stems a vast array of personal and interpersonal conflicts. They range from the fancy — how do we decide whether we like a work of art or not? — to the down-to-earth — how do we decide whether we like a person or not?

After a particularly lengthy battle that brings up Yvan’s fiancee (a “gorgon,” someone calls her), Marc’s wife and Serge’s pretensions, something startling occurs to the trio: They’ve been friends for 15 years, but with no apparent reason WHY. What drew them to each other? Why do they stay together? Do they have anything in common? Do any of them have traits which the others admire or respect?

From a simple thing like a debate over a painting come some thought-provoking issues. What is the nature of friendship? Do we have to “get” something out of it, or can we just enjoy one another’s company? How do you call a friendship off? It’s not like a marriage, where you can get divorced and make it official.

The play maintains a high level of intellectual (and occasionally sophomoric) humor throughout, even while addressing the weightier matters. All three actors show aplomb and grace; the characters come to life in all their petty, unlikable glory, snarking at each other in a way that is uncomfortable in real life but highly entertaining onstage (when we’re not the ones being snarked at).

Yvan is the only likable character of the lot. His lengthy and hysterical monologue detailing the woes of writing wedding invitations serves to establish him as the one whom we can most relate to. Most of us share something in common with Marc and Serge, too, but we’re not liable to be comfortable admitting it. One of the show’s strengths, in fact, is that even though Marc and Serge are both snippy, unforgiving, mean-spirited and picky, pulling apart every word and cynically searching for hidden meanings, we’re still sympathetic. We still want their friendship to work out. After all, we’d work hard to repair our friendships, too, no matter how unlikely those friendships may be.

For an evening of Christmas carols and quaint yuletide cheer, you won’t do much better than “A Little London Christmas.”

Eight carolers in 19th-century garb sing with unwaveringly strong voices and tight harmonies about the Christ child and related subjects. There’s not a Rudolph or a jingle bell in the whole show, which alone makes it unusual. This is a show that celebrates Jesus Christ, not the accoutrements we’ve come to associate with the season.

The leader is Nicholas (Davison Cheney), who tells us we’re taking a journey through Christmases past back to the very first one. Accompanying him are seven people whose personalities are summed up in a line or two: Lucy (Sarah Broberg) wants to hear an angel sing; Agatha (Lynne D. Bronson) is selfish and worldly; you get the idea. (The remaining five are Elijah Cardon, Mary Hall Drinkwater, Jared Pulham, Rob Roxburgh, and Juliet Joy Hall double-cast with Katy Worlton Pulham.)

The pageant-like dialogue, written by Marvin Payne, serves mainly to get us from one song to the next. There is no plot to speak of, and the acting tends to be over-dramatic. Essentially, it’s a concert of Christmas songs that pretends to be more than just a concert.

This is problematic: Either give us a story and characters or don’t. This half-way business just makes the audience expect more than it’s going to get. If we knew from the outset that we were at a caroling concert, we’d be fine with it. But setting up characters who then don’t go anywhere changes our expectations.

Much of the music is extremely beautiful, and several less-familiar works are included along with traditional carols. “Badgers and Hedgehogs” is a jaunty, utterly charming little number about various animals praising the Lord. “No Room in the Inn” and “This Little Babe” also stand out, though placing too much emphasis on them might detract from the many other gorgeous songs that could be named just as well.

The loopy musical “Nunsense,” about a group of sisters trying to raise funds to bury some nuns who were accidentally poisoned, benefitted from an original concept and irreverent attitude. Plus, seeing nuns sing and dance is automatically funny.

The Christmas sequel, “Nuncrackers,” can’t live off the originality anymore, the attitude is a little more relaxed and sometimes even schmaltzy, and if you’ve seen “Nunsense,” convent choreography will no longer amuse you.

That said, the show is pretty entertaining, even if, as with most sequels, it’s not much more than a rehash of what’s gone before. The Little Sisters of Hoboken have turned their convent basement into a TV studio and are producing their first Christmas special, for which we are the audience. Things go awry, of course, and what we see is a mixture of their prepared program and some of the shenanigans that go on during the down time.

Scatter-brained Sister Mary Amnesia (Robinne Booth) gives out door prizes. Sister Mary Regina (Pat Sumsion), the Reverend Mother, recalls with fondness the Christmases of her youth spent with a traveling carnival. Tough-talking Sister Robert Anne (Debbie Allred) sings about how all she wants for Christmas is a one-night stand — at Carnegie Hall, that is. Several of the nuns’ students enact adorable little Christmas-themed plays and pageants. And Father Virgil (Lon Keith), in a skit stolen from the days of burlesque, gets progressively drunker as he explains how to make holiday fruitcake.

In the midst of all this, Sister Mary Leo — who would be the world’s first nun ballerina — busts her leg backstage, and the convent’s Christmas presents are stolen.

Though some of the show gets more sentimental than its predecessors, writer Dan Goggin’s trademark wit and verbal agility are still present. (“To make your Christmas merry, we’ve got Marys by the score,” goes one of the songs.) The best nun-oriented jokes have already been made, but there is new territory explored with their version of the Home Shopping Network (from which you can buy two new perfumes: “Confession” and “Absolution”).

Probably the funniest number is a recruitment song called “In the Convent,” a parody of the Village People’s “In the Navy.” Their version of “The Nutcracker Ballet” is a hoot, too, as is pretty much the whole thing — especially if it’s your first exposure to this habit-forming little troupe.

The longer I live in Utah, the more I enjoy “Farley Family Xmas.”

James Arrington’s one-man show is a loving send-up of the large, bumptious families Utah is famous for. We’re never told specifically that they’re Mormons, but it’s clear they are, from Heber J. Farley’s gratitude for everyone’s “sparts” (read: “spirits”) to Aunt Pearl’s frequent exclamations of “Oh my heck!”

The setting is the annual Christmas gathering, and Heber is master of ceremonies. This is more or less by default; Arrington’s best, most vivid character has no public speaking skills, but as acting patriarch of the clan, the responsibility falls on him to introduce each of the speakers and quasi-talented performers who will entertain us Farleys (audience members are considered family) on this special occasion.

Heber is Every Mormon Grandfather, a perfect snapshot of post-middle-age verbosity and simplicity. Arrington plays him with delibrate anti-charisma: The guy’s so un-charming, he’s charming. (My favorite joke, three years running now, is when Heber accidentally refers to genealogist Aunt Pearl as a “gynecologist.” “She knows this family inside and out,” he says.)

So there’s “O Holy Night” as caterwauled by Aunt Viola (“When she sings a song, it stays sung,” Heber says), some holiday decorating tips from Aunt Beatrice, a plea from Boy Scout Eugene Farley for help with his Eagle project, and several other diversions.

Some characters, like little Delbert the drummer boy, while more or less accurate, don’t add much to the show; it’s the grown-ups who are most recognizable and therefore funny.

There’s also an out-dated reference to MTV’s “Beavis and Butthead” (the show hasn’t aired for a few years now), and during Aunt Pearl’s presentation of chintzy awards, Arrington used the opportunity opening night to make a million cheap and predictable Florida election jokes.

When he sticks to the good stuff, the show is hysterical, whimsically sweet and dead-on accurate. Utahns, Mormons, and everyone else will find themselves and their relatives in the people created by the inventive, plastic-faced James Arrington.

There’s a gentle nuttiness about “Farley Family Xmas,” James Arrington’s one-man show in which he plays several different members of that fictional but oh-so-real family.

The multiple characters have personality and verve, but none are completely off-the-wall or hyper. There’s the wealthy Parley Farley, whose heavily fortressed home is the site of the gathering; sweet old Aunt Viola, whose sings “O Holy Night” in that kind of quasi-operatic caterwaul that will sound all too familiar if you’ve ever been to church around Christmastime; and old grandpa Asa Farley, who staggers around and can barely speak above a hoarse whisper.

These characters and the several others presented are amusing, but never hysterical. The show doesn’t drag — and it’s only 105 minutes long — but it never really bursts out, either. If ever a show could be described as “moseying,” this is it.

The MC of the Farley family get-together is Heber J. Farley, who rattles off his relation to everyone else very quickly in the beginning. This is Arrington’s best character, and by far the most real. (I’d swear that was own grandfather up there!) From his opening line of “Merry Christmas and Caesar’s greasings” to his final “for heck’s sake,” he’s full of post-middle-age verbosity and rural Utah simplicity. Arrington’s accent here is great, making the character a memorable one.

In general, “Farley Family Xmas” is cute and amusing, good for a family outing. (In fact, while BYU shows normally don’t run on Mondays, this one does, in order to make it a potential Family Home Evening activity.) While funny in parts, it’s rarely gut-bustingly hilarious. You chuckle, you smile, you generally enjoy. You’re not sorry you saw it, but it doesn’t really stick with you the next day, either.

There are moments, however, when you can tell Arrington, who also wrote the show, has a clever, mischievous streak in him. Parley’s home security system includes attack dogs, which we are admonished to keep the kids away from, because “they don’t know the difference yet between a dwarf and a child.” A character recalls breaking a Christmas tree ornament and having it cut his hand, “and there was blood, but it was the color of Christmas.” And most memorably, Heber introduces the family historian as being an expert in gynecology, instead of genealogy. (“She knows this family inside and out,” he says.)

These lines and a few others hint at the impish recklessness that lies dormant at the bottom of the show. If there were more of them, the show would be more cutting-edge, more insane. As it is, it’s gentle, good-natured and silly — and that’s fine. But watch young Utahnna, dressed as an enormous snowman, doing a destructive dance around the stage, and see if you don’t wish there were more of that kind of loopy anarchy elsewhere in the show.

With the technical marvel that is the new stage at the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley, you can’t blame them for using it to its full extent, even for non-spectacle shows like “A Christmas Carol.” If I had a toy like that, I’d use it every chance I got, too.

And so people plunge into trapdoors as if descending into bottomless pits, gravestones pop up when you least expect it, and Scrooge’s bedroom window descends from the sky for the 90 seconds the script requires it, then vanishes again.

But technical wizardry aside, this production is as touching as ever, with some extraordinarily human touches that bring the show down to earth and right into the audience’s collective heart.

Richard G. Wilkins, playing Scrooge for the 15th consecutive year (which is also as long as the Hale Centre Theatre has been doing the show), is a fine Scrooge indeed. He’s not the stooped-over, arthritic Scrooge we often expect. He’s rather robust, in fact, which makes him all the scarier. He’s sarcastic and biting, too, rather than just being a grumpy old man. Wilkins’s Scrooge is a force to be reckoned with.

From the haunting “God Rest You Merry Gentlemen” that opens the show, right through the ending “Joy to the World,” the show’s music tends toward Christ-centered carols, rather than songs about decking the halls and having sleigh rides.

In one telling scene, Scrooge is particularly touched to see a past Christmas in which old Fezziwig’s family trimmed the tree while singing a simple hymn about the Savior’s birth.

Little elements like those, in which Scrooge is reminded not just of the spirit of Christmas but of the spirit of Christ Himself, outweigh all the moving platforms and atmospheric stage fog a theater could use. This is perhaps the most religious “Christmas Carol” I’ve seen.

Will Swenson’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s novel is good, allowing Dickens himself (played by Bruce A. Bredeson; double-cast with Mike Williams) to serve as narrator and occasionally even instruct the characters directly (though that convention does get a bit over-used, especially when Scrooge keeps glaring at him for telling him what to do, a joke that is only funny a couple times).

This is a spiritually uplifting production, inherently human and touching, with some nifty stage tricks added for fun. So convincing and cathartic is Scrooge’s redemption (and his redemption seems more real here than I’ve seen it anywhere) that when Wilkins comes out for the curtain call and declares “Merry Christmas!” to each section of the audience, you feel like he — and Scrooge — really mean it.

When a perfectly good version of “A Christmas Carol” is already being performed at the Hale Center Theater in Orem, why would a Utah County resident drive to West Valley to see another one?

Last year, one might have done this because the Hale Centre Theatre West Valley’s version was better: more special effects, more emotion, more humanity. This year, the opposite is true, and no one has to drive too far.

The West Valley production is certainly bigger, with that fabulous revolving stage and state-of-the-art sound and lights systems. You can practically feel Jacob Marley’s chains rattling, and the scene changes are remarkably fast.

It is the show itself that is slow and lumbering. Adapted by Richard G. Wilkins (who also directs and plays Scrooge), the play is wordy and has too much narration. Perhaps my opinion was colored by having seen the Orem version 10 days earlier, but at West Valley I was constantly reminded of how much more efficiently the story was told in Orem. I said in that earlier review that much of the narration is superfluous, but now that I’ve seen how bogged down West Valley gets, I should retract the statement. There’s extra dialogue, too, going on and on about things that should be arrived at much more quickly. (The scene with the people dividing up dead Scrooge’s belongings matches this description in particular.)

Wilkins is a spry, clownish Scrooge, instantly lovable even when he’s still a miser. The rest of the cast works earnestly to bring the play’s many words to life, from Tom Stam’s jolly Christmas Present to Tyler McGettigan’s adorable little Tiny Tim.

And for as unspectacular as the whole show generally is, the change-of-heart finale still has power to move audiences. I think there is something in the play’s message — which is much more than just “money isn’t everything” — that stands on its own, regardless of what surrounds it. As long as it is presented sincerely, as this production no doubt is, the sublime spirit of Christmas comes through loud and clear.

The Hale Center Theater in Orem performs “A Christmas Carol” every year. It’s a tradition. Many people make it part of their annual celebration to see this show at this theater. The play’s feel-good tone and gentle message of redemption and hope are a fine way to kick off the holiday season.

So the most irrelevant thing in the world is whether the show is actually GOOD or not. Good or bad, polished or sloppy, well-acted or dreadful, “A Christmas Carol” will continue to be popular no matter what any critic says, and no matter what the voice in the back of any audience member’s head says.

(In fact, I would venture to guess that if anyone ever said anything disparaging about this show, he would be dismissed as a cynic — as a Scrooge himself. How can it be bad? It’s about Christmas!)

Well, not that it matters, but “A Christmas Carol” actually IS pretty good. Chris Brower plays the role of miserly humbugger Ebenezer Scrooge with gusto and vigor; everyone else is double-cast, meaning you get one group on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and another on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This review is for the Tu-Th-Sat cast, though I have every reason to believe it makes little difference which cast you see in terms of the show’s quality.

You know the story. Scrooge loves money more than anything else, and he’s a bitter old man. Christmas Eve night, he is visited by the ghost of his old partner Jacob Marley (Cory Sackett), who warns him of the chain-filled afterlife that awaits him if he doesn’t straighten up. To beat the point into his stingy head, the ghosts of Christmas Past (Bryce Ashdown), Christmas Present (Merrill Dodge) and Christmas Future (Garrett Smit) harass him all night, showing him what was, what is, and what will come if he doesn’t get himself into the Christmas spirit but quick. Scrooge does so, buying a huge turkey for his much-abused clerk Bob Cratchit (Mark Pulham) and causing Tiny Tim (Cody Whitlock), who previously had one crippled foot in the grave but now will live thanks to Scrooge’s munificence, to remark: “God bless us, everyone.”

God bless us, indeed. The show is sweet and good-natured, with a particularly solid performance by Brower as Scrooge. Alan Sackett and Mike Sackett are pretty good, too, as a teen-age Scrooge and his friend Dick Wilkins. The two have a couple fight scenes that are impressively choreographed and performed (albeit a bit long).

There is much Christmas caroling and rejoicing amongst the townspeople, played by a cast of a couple dozen or so. All are in delightful holiday costumes, and the lights and sound for this show are dynamite, especially during Jacob Marley’s clattering entrance.

I could mention the structural problems with Ted Lehman’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel. We see only a two-dimensionally mean Scrooge, and only for about five minutes. After only a few moments with the first ghost, he’s learning the error of his ways, and by the time Christmas Present shows up, he’s downright humble. This is the life-long, hardened miser? A guy who quakes as soon as a ghost shows up and changes his entire outlook on life at the drop of a chain? One would think he would be a bit more stubborn and resistant to change.

I said I COULD mention this. But it doesn’t matter. “A Christmas Carol” isn’t so much a play anymore; it’s a pageant. It’s enough to merely be TOLD that Scrooge is mean. We don’t need to be shown nuances and subtleties of his psyche. We already know the story and half of the lines. What we need is a warm, enjoyable, family-friendly evening, and on those counts, “A Christmas Carol” delivers.

With fun songs, a live dog and lots of stage time for child actors, the Villa Playhouse’s “Annie” is a near-perfect family activity this season.

In case you’d forgotten (the movie version skips it), the play takes place at Christmastime, making it all the more timely.

Ruth Jensen plays the red-headed little girl who is rescued from her Depression-era orphanage/sweatshop by the bald and wealthy Oliver Warbucks (Kenneth Jensen). Ruth has a powerful voice for a youngster and will no doubt appeal to little girls in the audience who admire her strength and optimism. Kenneth Jensen tends to yell everything flatly as the blustery Daddy Warbucks, but since this is “Annie” and it’s Christmas, we’re not going to make an issue out of it.

Lara Z. Wells vamps it up big time as the evil and physically agile orphanage mistress Miss Hannigan, earning great laughs with her “Little Girls” song.

There is a lot of dancing; in fact, one could say the show is a bit over-choreographed, as people dance in nearly every single song, even when it seems illogical to do so — and when the song requires staying in one place, they make up for it by using a lot of hand gestures. But it’s impressive just to arrange 16 young girls into an intricately choreographed dance number, and so, as with the use of a live orchestra, one credits the theater for even attempting such a feat, even if it doesn’t always work out 100 percent.

The story, which has Annie searching for her real parents with Daddy Warbucks’s help, is a simple one; conflicts arise and are dealt with relatively quickly, and no one kills anyone else. The optimistic outlook of songs like “Tomorrow” is infectious, and the show, while technically imperfect at times, is sure to bring cheer to anyone who sees it.

Tim Slover’s* “Joyful Noise,” which premiered at BYU in 1998, is a fine play. Using an almost-bare stage and a straightforward storytelling style, it relates simply and effectively the true story of the politics and scandal behind Handel’s masterpiece “Messiah.”

The first-ever professional production of this play, at Pioneer Theatre Company, unfortunately is not a stellar one. The quality of the source material comes through — much of Slover’s witty and insightful dialogue would sound good even if the guy who says “You’ve got mail” were reading it — but the lack of passion from some of the cast members is also apparent.

Chief among the offenders in this area is the man who plays Handel himself, Charles Anatolsky. He is rotund and energetic, but his German accent is often too thick to be understood, and while he rants effectively as the “cantankerous old German bear,” his more human moments seem perfunctory. Handel seems neither larger-than-life nor life-like.

The very catty Kitty Clive, a hilariously bad actress who wants to sing for Handel and who holds a grudge against his other soprano, the scandal-plagued Susannah Cibber, also gets the short shrift. Played by Barbara McCulloh, Kitty comes off as two-dimensionally evil; if she had a moustache, she’d twirl it. This makes her hair-pulling slap-fight with Susannah (Gloria Biegler) seem entirely unrealistic, a trait I don’t recall associating with that scene in either of BYU’s two productions.

On the other hand, there are some very good performances among the supporting cast. Libby George (who was one of the highlights at this year’s Utah Shakespearean Festival) plays Handel’s most dedicated friend and fan Mary Pendarves with uncommon likability. Full of flowery language (she describes Susannah as having a voice “like the rustling of doves’ wings) and sincere praise for “the master,” she’s an entertaining character and a scene-brightener whenever she appears.

Max Robinson, consistently one of Pioneer’s best actors, shines as King George II, who supported Handel’s efforts when his wife was alive but is now being persuaded by the stuffy Bishop Henry Egerton (Matt Loney) to believe it’s blasphemous to put scriptural words to secular music. Robinson lends the king believability and humanity, particularly in his ruminations on the queen’s death two years prior.

The finale of the play did, in fact, move me; however, it was because Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” was being played, not because of what was happening in the play. Ideally, it should be a combination of both, a culmination of what the narrative has been leading to mingled with the jubilant strains of Handel’s masterpiece. This production goes by rote, and only occasionally rises above that.

*Tim Slover was pressured to resign from BYU after having an affair with a fellow professor’s wife, an affair with a student, and at least one attempted affair with a student that was rebuffed and reported. The BYU Theatre Department shamefully kept all of this quiet and allowed false alternate explanations for Slover’s departure to spread. Slover never suffered professional consequences for his actions and continued to teach at the university level for many years.  

The Hale Center Theater Orem performs “A Christmas Carol” each year with little variation, I hope you’ll forgive me for writing a review that is not much different from the ones I wrote in 1999 and 1998.

The play, now a tradition for many families, is more a pageant than anything else. Little attempt is made to develop depth of character. Most of the narration is superfluous, as whenever he tells us something, we then see the characters enact that very thing anyway. (“Scrooge is mean.” Then, a scene in which Scrooge is mean.) There is much Christmas caroling that is narratively ineffective, but perfect for setting the mood.

And that’s the key here. The point is not to make audiences walk out saying, “That’s the most thought-provoking, exhilirating theater experience I’ve ever had.” You want them to walk out saying, “I have never been as full of the Christmas spirit as I am now!” By the end of the show, when a repentant Scrooge is distributing gifts with great giddy delight, it would difficult not to be swept up in at all. The show is joyful and unabashedly heartfelt.

Merrill Dodge (also director) is a rather buffoonish Scrooge, not so much fierce as he is grumpy. His beleaguered clerk, the weak, simpering Bob Cratchit, is played by Gavin Grooms (the only role not double-cast).

We will also mention Josh Romney as Young Scrooge, seen during the “Ghost of Christmas Past” segment, who exhibits quite a bit of talent as a charming young man who is on the verge of becoming miserly. He and Sam Dodge as Dick Wilkins have a very enjoyable scene together in which they fight the way a couple teen-age friends would — another pointless excursion, plot-wise, but awfully fun to watch nonetheless.

Mike Gray is a treat, too, as Christmas Present and a few other roles. His booming laugh and infectious energy are a highlight of the show.

Do you want to make this a yearly tradition for YOUR family? Theatrical shortcomings aside, it gets a lot of things right, too, like fantastic costumes and effective use of sound. And if your aim is just to get into the Christmas spirit, then you couldn’t do much better than this.

Provo Theatre Company’s quaint little revue “The Big KSL Holiday Broadcast” is an uncynical look back at the Golden Age of Radio (1926-1948, roughly).

For old people, it’s nostalgia, with re-enactments of classic radio shows like “Fibber McGee & Molly” and “The Jack Benny Show.” For everyone else, it’s a glimpse into a time when entertainment was much simpler and comedy wasn’t really very funny. (Maybe Jack Benny’s skits were funny then, and maybe people were just delighted at the prospect of having entertainment beamed into their own homes.)

Performed by three men, three women, a pianist and a sound-effects guy (Josh Gubler, who makes the noises live on stage with various props), the show focuses on the music of the era. Shane Wright sings a whammo “Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-Ness,” and Jen Ballif’s sultry “Stormy Weather” is a heart-melter.

While most of the songs feature two or more singers in near-perfect harmony, everyone gets a solo, too and everyone sells these classic songs with great talent and energy. The beautiful Amy Ashworth cheers up the troops with “He’s 1-A in the Army” and “Accentuate the Positive” (she also has powers to make an ad for catsup — pronounced “cat-sup” — sound sexy); Dianna Graham belts out “Blow Gabriel Blow” like nobody’s biz-ness; Daniel Law is used more in the comedy bits (he does Will Rogers and Jack Benny) but solos in “Go Tell It on the Mountain”; and a charming Spencer Barnes sings “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” Even the pianist, Ross Boothe — who is amazing in that capacity, making the piano sound as rich as a full band — strums guitar and sings “Pastures of Plenty.”

All of this makes me jealous of how great popular music was in the first half of the 20th century. They had Gershwin, Porter and Berlin, whose songs had catchy melodies and whose lyrics actually rhymed, and I’m stuck hearing the same infernal Red Hot Chili Peppers song over and over again on the radio.

Where the show stumbles — nay, falls flat on its face — is in the dramatic re-enactments. As we’re whisked through time from 1927 to 1946, we hear radio news reports of Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic, the start of the Great Depression, and the end of World War II. We also, unfortunately, are subjected to some weird melodrama, watching onlookers react to seeing the Hindenberg explode, for example, while we hear the actual “Oh, the humanity!” radio clip. The transition is too abrupt: “We’re swing-dancing and having fun! And, oh, whoops, the Hindenberg exploded, hundreds are dead. And now we’re dancing again!”

Even more dreadfully maudlin is the scene in which Dianne Graham is a mother being informed that her son has died in the war. She breaks down and sobs, as you might expect — but again, with no clue who these characters are, no connection to their lives, and no warning that we’re about to go from upbeat nostalgia to depressing melodrama, the whole scene is embarrassing and unwatchable.

A little retooling, though, and collaborators Tim Threlfall and Dean Hughes will have a new Christmas tradition well worth visiting again and again. Close your eyes during the awkward parts, and enjoy the music.

OK, so it’s about Sigmund Freud, and he’s in London, trying to rest, and this girl shows up and it turns all farcical, but then later it’s a psychological drama, and the clock melts because Salvador Dali is there.

Terry Johnson’s “Hysteria” is an interesting piece of work, to say the least. It’s based on a few historical incidents (Freud and Dali really did meet once, briefly) and employs broad farce for much its storytelling. It also becomes deathly serious as it raises provocative questions about the nature of psychology.

Freud (Gene Pack) is a dying man, hoping for some peace and quiet in London in 1938. In the middle of a rainstorm, a girl named Jessica (Kristin Kahle) shows up, sopping wet, insisting she must speak with him. When Freud’s doctor, Yahuda (Tony Larimer), shows up, Freud keeps her locked in the closet to avoid the awkwardness of explaining what’s going on; the arrival of surrealist painter Dali (Joe Pitti) just complicates things.

Eventually, we learn why Jessica is there: She wants Freud to re-enact some sessions he had with a woman, someone in whose life Jessica has a vested interest. Emotionally blackmailed by her, Freud goes along with it, hoping to get rid of her but leading himself to examine his psychological theories and teachings.

The first act drags, and is uneven in tone. The farce tends to seem overly buffoonish, simply because it’s in such stark contrast to the intellectualism of the rest of the play. Still, you have to give Johnson credit for even trying such a strange combination, even if it’s not entirely successful.

Those provocative questions mentioned earlier do not come into play until the second act, and the show ends very well. It’s an unusual theater experience, perhaps not to everyone’s tastes and certainly not for the casual theatergoer, but something to chew on, anyway.

Despite its mildly filthy title, the Desert Star’s “Kissed by an Angel: ‘Tis the Season to Get Your Jollies” is as family-friendly as all of that theater’s shows. Unfortunately, where it differs is that while most DSP shows are funny farces, this one tries to be serious, too — and winds up being neither very funny nor very touching.

I’ve seen the last 23 shows at the Desert Star, and this is the first one I can think of in which a character has died. Even their “Hamlet” parody kept everyone alive, for crying out loud! And a death would have been fine here, or in any show, if it had been played for laughs, and I’m certainly not opposed to the theater trying something a little different from its usual routine. But it’s too hard to go from having the audience literally boo the cheesy villain in one scene to wanting them to cry at a character’s death in the next one. The context is all wrong. All the comedy is broad and superficial; how can they expect the drama to be any different?

The show is a parody of “Touched by an Angel,” with heavenly assistants Roma (Mary Parker Williams) and Tess (Scott Holman, also writer and director) trying to help old Grandpa George (Jack Drayton) keep his toy store from being bought by the evil Peter D’Jerc (Steven Fehr) and his dumb-blonde girlfriend Mary (Arika Schockmel).

Grandpa’s granddaughter, Sarah (Diana Dayley; double-cast with JulieAnn Christensen), meanwhile, is falling for the third angel — the Angel of Death, Joe Black (Paul Thomas Murphy).

Most of the laughs come from Scott Holman wearing a dress and playing the Della Reese character. (His parody of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” called “Repent,” is hysterical.) Paul Thomas Murphy, normally a great help in these shows, is stuck making a lot of strained jokes about being Mr. Death.

The rest of the cast does its best with the material (newcomer Arika Schockmel is particularly good as the dim-witted girlfriend), but alas, the script is merely average to begin with.

Come on, Desert Star: If we wanted schmaltz, we’d go watch “A Christmas Carol.” In fact, we ARE watching “A Christmas Carol,” at least twice this year. That’s why we counted on Desert Star to give us something a little lighter.

E.L. Doctorow’s novel "Ragtime" makes for a first-class musical drama, thanks to Stephen Flaherty’s rag-inspired score and Lynn Ahrens’s poetic-but-functional lyrics.

The show has a massive plot and numerous characters, yet is easy to follow, is thoroughly enjoyable, and is ultimately profoundly touching.

Set in New Rochelle, N.Y., in the early 20th century, the story mixes real-life people and events with fictitious ones. Entertainer Harry Houdini, capitalist J.P. Morgan and anarchist Emma Goldman all play significant parts from the sidelines, representing the changing face of America.

Meanwhile, the story focuses on fictional characters who represent the same thing, and the musical style known as "ragtime" symbolizes change, modernization and a loss of isolated innocence. Ultra-white Father (Joseph Dellger) and prim Mother (Victoria Strong) live with their son, Little Boy (Ricky Ashley) in an ultra-white neighborhood, having little contact with the folks in Harlem or the dirt-poor Russian immigrants coming over by the boatload. When a black servant girl named Sarah (Lovena Fox) has a baby fathered by musician Coalhouse Walker (Lawrence Hamilton), the family takes her and the child in, eventually helping her to reconcile with Coalhouse.

Coalhouse and Sarah have a strong love, shattered when an act of racist cruelty leads to Sarah’s death. Coalhouse seeks revenge, and everyone’s lives are changed.

Mother and her Younger Brother (Sam Samuelson) are particularly strong characters amidst the larger-than-life historical ones. Younger Brother is a rootless young man seeking his identity, and his pursuit of vaudeville performer Evelyn Nesbit (Jacqueline Bayne) is poignant and sad, as he tries to cling to anything he can in his ever-changing world.

Mother, meanwhile, is a remarkable figure, demure and wife-ish in her behavior, yet unafraid of the societal changes around them.

The cast is excellent, and the show is virtually flawless, from music to staging to the performances. It doesn’t have the flash of "Phantom" or the name recognition of "Les Miserables," but "Ragtime" is easily as good as either of them.

Oscar Wilde’s 105-year-old “An Ideal Husband” is produced at BYU with sets, costumes and an air of silly pretentiousness befitting the iconoclastic comedy.

The scene is the “London season,” a time when the upper-class British would spend all their time socializing. It’s a glib, flirtatious society full of “beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics,” as one character puts it, who seek nothing more than shallow conversation and entertainment.

One such evening is at the home of politician Sir Robert Chiltern (Ary Farhnakian) and his wife, Gertrude (Hailey Smith). They’re a perfect couple, by all accounts, and indeed they seem to think so, until the arrival of Mrs. Chevely (Colleen Marie), a conniving, twice-divorced woman who tries to blackmail Sir Chiltern. She wants him to come out in support of a dishonest venture concerning an Argentine canal; in exchange, she will refrain from producing evidence that Chiltern’s own fortune came from some shady dealings he had while just getting started in politics. Seeking to keep his wife from knowing of his youthful indiscretion, he agrees to Mrs. Chevely’s terms, but soon Lady Chiltern learns the truth anyway, and her image of an “ideal husband” is shattered.

Assisting them both is their bachelor friend Arthur Goring (Matt Biedel), a suave, carefree man who spouts pithy sayings as though he were a living Oscar Wilde quotebook. He’s also very wise, offering outstanding advice to the Chilterns while avoiding his disapproving father (Daryl “Lance” Ball) and subtly courting Chiltern’s sister Mabel (Amy Addams).

Much of the speech in the production, otherwise smoothly directed by Barta Heiner, is a bit affected. This is clearly intentional in some cases — as with the hoity-toity Lady Markby (Celeste Barrand) and her shrill ramblings — but at other times merely seems like actors letting their vocal patterns get the best of their characters. It’s difficult to follow, let alone find humor in, a play in which the dialogue sounds forced or unconvincing.

Matt Biedel is the show’s greatest asset as Goring, the only character who realizes how pretentious everyone is, yet still associates with them. The robust, ample-chinned Biedel is natural and relaxed, easily pulling the audience into the play; in contrast, Ary Farahnakian’s Chiltern often seems to blurt out important decisions without having thought about them first.

Colleen Marie is coldly beautiful as Mrs. Chevely, and Hailey Smith is the very picture of strong femininity. Earning laughs in their small roles are Joshua Bingham as French dandy Vicomte De Nanjac and Jon Liddiard as Goring’s ghostly manservant Phipps.

Intellectual and wordy, the play requires that attention be paid to it. The reward for this effort is a sunny, mildly thought-provoking show with far more substance to it than many of its characters have.

The touring company of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning rock musical “Rent” is back this week after a successful two-week run in 1998. The cast is better this time, and to someone who’s never seen it and is the right audience for it (no one will claim this show is for everyone), it will be an entertaining, powerful drama.

Written by Jonathan Larson, “Rent” is loosely based on the opera “La Boheme” and follows the lives of several young New Yorkers as they struggle with relationships, AIDS and their attempts to live a “bohemian” (that is, either “irresponsible” or “carefree,” depending on your point of view) lifestyle.

At the center is Mark (Matt Caplan), an amateur filmmaker whose actress girlfriend Maureen (Maggie Benjamin) has recently broken up with him to pursue a life of lesbianism with Joanne (Jacqueline B. Arnold). Though he doesn’t have the most stage time, it is Mark who gives the show its moral center, such as it is, and is probably the most sympathetic character, frequently a victim of circumstance as his friends’ situations grow worse.

His best friend and roommate, Roger (Christian Mena), is a an AIDS-stricken songwriter who gets involved with Mimi (Saycon Sengbloh), a dancer and junkie who is likewise afflicted. Their relationship is stormy, as is Maureen and Joanne’s; the only stable romance is between their friend Collins (Mark Richard Ford) and his transvestite boyfriend Angel (Shaun Earl).

Christian Mena has a clear, passionate voice that does Roger great justice; unfortunately, Mena is also too brooding and sulky to allow us access into the character’s thoughts. Maggie Benjamin’s Maureen is a feisty, funny addition, as is Shaun Earl’s silky-voiced Angel.

The songs range from the mundane to the poignant, the music usually all-out rock Å’n’ roll with some nice ballads, too. This is a show for the young, and it appeals to their sensibilities without pandering to them, offering a glimpse into a way of life that is both appealing and appalling.

Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony award-winning musical “Rent” is a show that looks to be better than the sum of its parts, a show that SEEMS great, but that actually doesn’t have much substance to it.

It’s an odd dichotomy. As I walked out of the Capitol Theatre, where the show is playing through Dec. 6, I had the impression that the show had been really good. Most of the rock ‘n’ roll score had been catchy and lively, the lighting and stage presentation were terrific, the singing was almost all top-notch, and there were some genuinely engrossing moments.

But as I reflected more and more on the play — and the current condition of I-15 afforded me plenty of time to do that — I realized it has serious flaws. The characterization is rushed, and the second act covers a year’s worth of time, forcing us to simply take the play’s word for it that various people have fallen in love, for example, rather than actually showing it to us. The result is that when people die, we frankly haven’t been involved enough to really care very much. Some of the songs have potential for great emotional effect; there just needs to be more leading up to them to get us in the right frame of mind, rather than saying, “These two are in love; we want you to feel sad now that one of them is dead.”

Then there’s the matter of the lead character, Roger (Christian Anderson). He’s a musician, and unfortunately, so is the actor who plays him. Anderson doesn’t act so much as he struts around like a rock star. He has one of those tough-guy rock-star voices, comparable to Michael Bolton’s, and his facial expressions and physical gestures give the impression that he looks at the show as one big concert. As he sings “One Song Glory,” in which he expresses his desire to write one great song before he dies of AIDS, a light from below casts a huge shadow of him on the back wall. It’s a nifty effect — too bad Anderson doesn’t put anything more than generic rock ‘n’ roll ballad-type intensity-passing-for-emotion into it. That’s all he ever puts into anything, including the scene where he finally sings his “one great song.”

We should also address the message of the play. It’s a retelling of the famous opera “La Boheme,” updated for the ’90s. So instead of a painter dying of tuberculosis, we have a dancer dying of AIDS. In fact, we have several people dying of AIDS. In this play, nearly everyone is gay, and nearly everyone has AIDS, though only a couple people fall into both categories.

What everyone DOESN’T have is a job, or a future, or much direction. These are “bohemians”: artists, slackers, Generation Xers, whatever you want to call them. Roger the musician and his roommate Mark the filmmaker (Trey Ellett) live in a New York apartment with no heat and only occasional electricity. They are surrounded by their fellow bohemians, including gay teacher Tom (Dwayne Clark) and his boyfriend/girlfriend, the cross-dressing Angel (Shaun Earl) — both of whom have AIDS. (I am not being snotty when I call him a “boyfriend/girlfriend” — the characters in the show are often unsure which gender to refer to him as, too.)

There’s also Mark’s ex-girlfriend, the performance artist Maureen (Erin Keaney), who recently dumped Mark and took up a life of lesbianism with Joanne (Kamilah Martin). But they’re all friends, despite their differences, and the whole thing is like a depressing “Seinfeld” where everyone is Kramer.

The ultimate message of the show is a good one, as expressed in the lyrics: “No day but today”; “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.” In other words: Don’t dwell on the past. Don’t worry about the future. Enjoy life now. Make the most of it. A reasonably good philosophy, as far as it goes.

But as with so much of late-’90s youth culture (and bear in mind I’m a member of the same generation portrayed here), the message is also one of hedonism and self-gratification. There is little in the way of responsibilty or morality. The characters expect us to sympathize with them because of their plights, but as far as we can tell, they are largely responsible for their own plights. The ones without jobs (i.e., Mark and Roger) seem unwilling to do anything other than their art; Mimi (Karen Olivo), who has AIDS, natch, is a drug addict. There are several instances of sexual unfaithfulness. We can feel bad for them for being so screwed up, but one can’t help but realize they brought most of it on themselves. If there’s more at play here — their childhoods, or other extenuating circumstances — the show does nothing to convey that, allowing us instead to assume they at one time had the chance to behave responsibly and merely chose not to.

The sole exception to all this is Mark the filmmaker. Trey Ellett’s performance in that role is the saving grace of the production. Mark comes across as intelligent and fairly ambitious. He was not to blame in being dumped by Maureen, and he has a sensitive soul that inspires genuine sympathy from the audience. In the second act, as he sings about being left alone, wondering why everything has happened the way it has, we feel true emotion for him. He is a victim of fate, a good person caught up into a sad existence. The play wants us to think of everyone that way, but only Mark actually is.

In the end, “Rent” is entertaining and raucous, an anarchic romp with people the likes of which few us have any connection with. Unfortunately, due to some mediocre performing and a script that is under-written in the way of character development, they’re people we continue to have no connection with. The potential is there, but this production, at least, doesn’t live up to it.