Pioneer Theatre Company’s characteristically high production values and solid performances make “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” rise above its somewhat mediocre source material and turn into something fine.

(By source material, I mean the musical, not the Mark Twain novel it’s based on. Believe me, I know better than to criticize a Mark Twain novel in a public setting.)

Country-music legend Roger Miller wrote the music, most of which sounds approximately the same (especially in the first act), though it does fit the setting of the play. The exceptions, however, make for some fantastic moments.

Huck’s trailer-trash prototype dad (E.J. Carroll) has an amusingly inebriated number in which he rails against the “Guv’ment,” making for the first act’s highlight — which isn’t saying much, alas. Things don’t get much better, musically or in terms of plot development, until the end, when Huck (Mark Lanyon) and escaped slave Jim (Michael Mandell) have hooked up with two con men (John Tillotson, Max Robinson), who sing of their bamboozling plans in the rousing “When the Sun Goes Down in the South.”

The second act is much more significant, as Huck struggles with his feelings of what’s “right,” and the con men do quite a bit of amusing damage. We also hear actress Catrice Joseph sing “How Blest We Are” at a funeral, and it’s a goosebump-inducing tour de force of gospel singing.

Also in the goosebumps department is Michael Mandell, the enormous and enormously gifted actor/singer who plays Jim. His deep, soulful voice shakes the rafters; one is unsure whether to be more in awe at that, or at his heartbreakingly honest performance as the gentle, simple-minded Jim.

Mark Lanyon holds his own as Huck, too, and the two have chemistry as unlikely friends.

One enjoys “Big River” because one enjoys the story Mark Twain wrote. The music, with only a few exceptions (“Worlds Apart” and “The Royal Nonesuch” being two more examples), is unspectacular, and the story sometimes seems like it’s floating aimlessly down a river, too. But its heart is in the right place, and the joyously sentimental finale brings everything together.

Ah, those zany folks at the Off Broadway Theatre are back in top form again, with their second “Dragnet” parody, “Grabnet II: Copping an Attitude.”

Written and directed by Eric Jensen, who also stars as Joe Thursday, “Grabnet II” is what OBT audiences have come to know and love: a loony parody with puns, sight gags and pop-cultural references flying fast and furious. It’s very similar to an “Airplane” or “Naked Gun” movie, except that here, the actors tend not to know their lines, which actually adds to the show’s humor. (Few things are funnier than seeing an actor improvise when he’s not supposed to. The night I saw it, I’d guess the show was a good five minutes longer than it was supposed to be, due to everyone’s screwing around.)

The plot involves the President’s daughter, Kay (Jennifer Anderton), who is kidnapped by the evil Juan (Cody K. Carlson), who is secretly in cahoots with the Chief of Police (David Hunsaker). Cops Joe Thursday and Frank Smith (Russell Peacock) are on the case — that is, until the potty-mouthed chief (he calls someone a “flippin’ fetchwad” at one point) fires Thursday.

Jensen, one of the funniest actors in Utah, is well-suited for this part. He tends to talk too fast anyway, and that’s perfect for the no-nonsense Joe Thursday.

Everything moves fast in this show, which is good. About half of the jokes are awful (“When’s your birthday?” “The first of May.” “What year?” “Every year”), but when you’re doing a thousand jokes a minute, who cares if only 50 percent amount to anything? The overall effect is that it’s one zinger after another.

There are some fantastic scenes, too, including a great hidden-microphone routine in which the microphone keeps slipping down Thursday’s shirt, causing him to go through contortions in order to get the bad guy to speak into it. The finale is great, too, as Frank realizes the only fight training he ever had was from watching “West Side Story” — which is what the last showdown between good and evil looks like.

This is a highly entertaining show, a live-action cartoon that just gets funnier as it goes.

“Wedlocked,” the two-person musical comedy by Marvin Payne and Steven Kapp Perry, just had a major staging at the SCERA Showhouse two months ago, and now it’s running at the Little London Dinner Theater.

It’s the same cast (Payne and his wife, Laurie) and same director (Alisha Christiansen); it’s even the same set.

As far as I can tell, it’s also the exact same show. If any dialogue has been changed or omitted, it’s not noticeable to someone who just saw it and took notes on it in January.

So I hope you’ll pardon me for quoting my previous review extensively in this one.

The Paynes, who between them have enough charm and stage presence to fill an entire cast, play Val and Elizabeth Utley, a Seattle couple best described as “typical.” Elizabeth, through whose eyes most of the story is told, is a harried and overworked housewife who feels ignored by her husband, who, despite being an accountant, mainly wants to have fun and avoid serious issues.

In an attempt to “start over,” Elizabeth drags Val back to Salina, Utah, where they spent their honeymoon. Val, being impossibly thick-headed — the show was written by men; is this really how we see ourselves? — hasn’t the first clue that Elizabeth is trying to put the spark back in their marriage, or that sparks are even missing. Eventually, everything comes to a head, and the problems are dealt with.

It’s a slight, innocuous storyline, and no major “secrets of a successful marriage” are revealed. Accordingly, the show is shorter than average, though a few minutes could still be shaved off here and there, particularly in the long sequence where Val tries to watch a video while Elizabeth tries to be romantic.

(Having seen the show twice now, I’m catching more of how the video — a fictitious romance set in the ’40s — is supposed to parallel Val and Elizabeth’s situation. The parallels are not very clear, though, nor are they particularly meaningful. I still say a good portion of that could either be cut, or re-written to be more poignant.)

The humor is gentle, occasionally barbed, often sitcom-ish (Elizabeth tells Val: “In your physiology, DNA stands for ‘Doesn’t Notice Anything’!”). Act II has one terrific scene, in which the two finally lay all the cards on the table and talk things out. This scene has improved quite a bit since the SCERA production, with the Paynes really finding some chemistry together as a couple at odds with each other.

Add a few more layers to Val’s rather one-dimensional character, and Perry and Payne will have a musical worthy of greater attention. As it stands, it pleases the audience, cordially doing its thing and politely allowing you to move on. You may be largely unaffected by the proceedings, but you leave with a smile on your face, anyway.

In all the hundreds of plays I’ve seen in my life, I have NEVER seen a theater so dark as in the climactic scenes of Provo Theatre Company’s “Wait Until Dark.”

We’re talking absolute pitch blackness here. No lights from backstage, the lobby, or outside. No light from anywhere.

But this is just the capper on a show that is taut, suspenseful and thrilling, a masterpiece of atmospheric terror. Even if you’ve seen the movie, the play still packs a wallop.

New Yorker Sam Hendrix (Scott Bronson) has returned from a business trip with a doll given to him by a stranger in the hopes he will deliver it to a sick girl in the hospital. He misplaces the doll, though, which is unfortunate, since it actually contains quite a lot of heroin, which a trio of bad guys are eager to have back.

They plan an elaborate scheme to get the doll, which they assume must be somewhere in Sam’s apartment. The fact that Sam’s wife, Susy (Tayva Patch), is blind only helps matters: They wait until Sam is gone, then come in and deceive the blind woman.

Mike Talman (Christopher Kendrick) poses as one of Sam’s old Army buddies, gaining Susy’s trust and working to let his cohorts (Ryan Williams, Jeremy Hoop) in so they can find the doll. Susy is led to believe the doll may be incriminating evidence against Sam in a murder case, so she’s eager to find it, too — and far too willing to trust Mike.

The opening scene, in which the evil trio makes their plans, is ominous and intense. Things lighten up briefly after that, as Susy and Sam interact. We learn that Susy has only been blind for a year or so, which means she’s not one of those supernaturally powerful blind people you tend to see in fiction, the ones who move around as gracefully and effortlessly as ballet dancers. Susy has learned a few tricks — how to tell a person by his walk, for example — but she also stumbles around a lot and runs into things.

This is played out perfectly by Patch, who plays Susy as very strong, but also very vulnerable. Kendrick, a natural on stage, makes Mike seem sympathetic, even nice; one senses he really doesn’t want to hurt Susy. Hoop and Williams are the truly evil ones, particularly Hoop, whose character is the mastermind behind it all, stopping at nothing to get what he’s after.

There is one minor flaw in the show: the setting. The 1966 script is kept intact, with the phone number for the police being “0” (or 440-1234, directly), instead of 911, among other small 1960s-isms … yet everyone dresses in modern clothing, and Susy’s cordless phone is certainly a product of the ’90s. That’s a small point, but I can’t think of anything else negative to say, and I have a reputation to uphold here.

Director David Morgan keeps the pace swift, building the tension up to almost unbearable levels. Those last few minutes are a classic study in fear — after all, what’s more scary than darkness?

For good, old-fashioned thrills and heart-stopping terror, you won’t do better than “Wait Until Dark.” Provo Theatre Company has topped itself again.

Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” in production now at Hale Centre Theatre West Valley, is as full of cliches as it is surprises.

There’s a storm, and strangers are gathered in one place. Someone is killed, and it’s apparent that one of the guests is the murderer. People say things along the lines of “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you here today” and “We’ve got to catch him before he strikes again!” If the play had a butler, you can rest assured he’d be the murderer.

Of course, these are only cliches in mystery stories because countless writers have copied Agatha Christie; when she started using them, they weren’t cliches yet.

Nonetheless, to an audience that has seen countless quaint old murder mysteries, the conventions of the genre may seem a bit dated, regardless of whether they were fresh or not when the play was written.

It doesn’t help that “The Mousetrap” is a play that forces you to keep watching just so you can find out who the murderer is. There’s never any great suspense over it, nor are we particularly concerned for the well-being of any of the as-yet unkilled characters. We keep watching because of the little plot twists — like the police sergeant re-enacting everything that happened just prior to the murder, only with everyone playing someone else’s part.

Giles (Brook Robinson) and Mollie Ralston (Eden Benson) own a bed-and-breakfast sort of place in 1940s England. Several guests arrive just as a blizzard sets in, with news of a murder having just occurred in town. Seems that years ago, three young children were taken from their parents and sent to a foster home that proved to be abusive and neglectful. One child died; the surviving boy and girl have disappeared from society, and it would seem that one of them is taking revenge on the abusive foster parents, as well as (possibly) others who were directly or indirectly responsible for their being sent to live there.

A clue at the crime scene suggests that someone at the Ralstons’ inn will be the next victim — but who among them had any connection to those children, so many years ago?

Well, it’s obvious Mollie is involved somehow, because she starts acting outrageously nervous as soon as the matter is brought up by Sergeant Trotter (JaceSon Parker Barrus). If the script calls for her to seem unsettled, director John Adams ought to have helped Benson find a more subtle way of expressing it. No one else ever gets that flustered, including the murderer himself/herself.

The acting is uneven throughout the cast, in fact. Clara Susan Morey II is marvelously pompous as the dour Mrs. Bogle, and Heather Ferrel gives the mysterious Miss Casewell a nice, exotic air; but at the same time, John Sweeney is too over-the-top loopy as eccentric Christopher Wren, and Glen A. Carpenter sounds neither looks nor sounds the slightest bit Italian as the Italian Mr. Paravicini.

“The Mousetrap” has been running in London for 48 years. With some better acting and more suspenseful direction, the rather stale Hale Centre Theatre production could be just as good.

UVSC’s production of “Godspell” is a show that guilts you into feeling its emotion, without doing much to deserve it.

When Jesus is crucified, you’re sort of religiously obligated to feel sad about it — even if this particular Jesus (Ryan Wooden) has never been anything more than a two-dimensional cartoon character to us.

Wooden, like most of the ensemble cast, puts his whole energy into the part in this loose assemblage of acted-out stories from St. Matthew. The idea is to present Christ as a great public speaker, a man with a sense of humor who was not above using any tools necessary to teach his lessons. So we’re not expecting the gentle, bearded man in a robe we usually see; we’re expecting a dynamic, charismatic guy with a quick wit and natural magnetism.

Unfortunately, this performance comes up short. The youthful, ruddy-faced Wooden is obviously earnest, doing his best to command the stage, speaking quickly and with forced zeal like Robin Williams or Jim Carrey. But the simple fact is, he is overshadowed by a much smoother and natural Ken Foody, who plays John the Baptist and probably would have been a better choice to play the pivotal role of Jesus.

(The differences between the two actors are pointed up in the delightful ’20s-style song-and-dance number “All for the Best,” in which they put on a “dueling singers” routine. Jesus is declared “winner,” but anyone watching can tell that shouldn’t be the case.)

Singling out one actor, especially one obviously giving it his all, may not be fair. But in a show like this, where everything hinges on having an attention-grabbing Jesus, that actor makes or breaks the show.

He is supported by a large ensemble of followers, all dressed colorfully. Some productions of this show have had the cast members dressed as clowns, and I see no reason why they shouldn’t be. Their demeanor and style of humor is definitely clownish; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

One thing everyone has in common is singing ability. Wooden’s sweet voice is particularly effective during the crucifixion scene (the only serious part of the show), and cast member Traci Brewster steals with the show with her vampy “Turn Back, Oh Man” that opens Act II.

In the end, we’re supposed to feel sad that Jesus has been betrayed and killed. But that’s not fair, considering there has been no attempt at a plot up to that point. The parables and vignettes are mostly entertaining, and the show works fine on that level. But then, out of thin air, the show finds a plot and suddenly wants us to feel emotions for characters we’ve never gotten to know beyond a superficial level. It’s not fair, and it doesn’t work.

Don’t worry about the show being sacrilegious; it’s not, unless you think Jesus having a sense of humor is heresy. Worry more about the show meandering for 105 minutes — albeit it with several bright spots — and then suddenly suggesting it had a point all along, but failing to tell us what that point is. In the theater world, anyway, THAT’S blasphemy.

“The Secret Garden” is a musical for which many people have a soft spot in their hearts. Those people will be delighted with Hale Center Theater Orem’s faithful production of it, as it has all the melancholy storybook charm normally associated with the show.

People for whom this is their first “Garden” experience, however, may wonder: Why is there only one song (“Lily’s Eyes”) that is at all pretty or memorable? What’s with the weird Eastern mysticism that heals the little boy? Was his uncle keeping him sick on purpose? Why are there so many songs that don’t add to anything (“A Fine White Horse,” “The Girl I Mean to Be”)? What are we supposed to get out of all this, anyway?

Maybe new-comers won’t be so cynical. Nonetheless, “The Secret Garden” is a show that, even if performed well, like it is here, will leave some people in tears and other people entirely unmoved. The show either means something to you, or it doesn’t.

In colonial India a century ago, young Mary Lennox (a stalwart Kaylie Bell) is orphaned by a cholera epidemic that somehow skips her. She’s sent to England to live with her hermity Uncle Archibald (Chris Higbee), who mourns the death of his beloved Lily (Korianne Johnson), and mopes because he’s a hunchback, although his hunchbackedness does not manifest itself in the form of an actual hump, though he does limp a little.

Uncle Archie’s house is crawling with ghosts, including Lily and Mary’s mom (Anna Worthen), who provide narration and move the sets around for the show’s numerous scene changes. Mary is lonely until she stumbles across a room containing her cousin, Colin (Adam Steele), who has been bed-ridden all his life, under the care of Archibald’s brother Dr. Neville Craven (Rex Kocherhans), who fears Colin may develop the same sickness as his father and wind up with an imaginary hunch on his back, too.

The moment Mary and Colin meet is when the show begins to get interesting. Both young actors are adorable, but they’re talented actors, too. One enjoys watching them interact.

Meanwhile, Mary discovers Aunt Lily’s old garden, locked away and dying in the backyard. She helps the hired hands revive it, and before long it has healed Colin of his mysterious ailment, Archibald is happy again, and Neville (whose badness is only hinted at, in the suggestion he may have been in love with Lily, too) is banished.

There are great singing voices all around. Chris Higbee is strong and piercing as Archibald, his high voice punctuated with emotion as he mourns his situation. Hired help Dickon (Ben Tichy) has some fine moments, too, particularly in his “Winter’s on the Wing” song.

This show takes too long to settle; the first 20 minutes are constant chaos, as all the exposition is taken care of. On a big Broadway stage, with sets moving on and off mechanically, this works fine; on the Hale Center’s tiny theater-in-the-round, it means people are moving furniture onstage just to have someone say three lines, then moving it off again. It’s a distraction, though they do the best they can with the small space they’re given.

Performances are good, the singing is strong, director Syd Riggs keeps the pace up pretty well. It’s a fine production of a show that, like I said, either moves you or doesn’t. Fans will not be disappointed; non-fans will probably remain such.

Divorce and adultery were never funnier than they are in Salt Lake Acting Company’s production of “Gun-Shy.”

There are two couples. First is the controlling Evie (Kathryn Atwood) and luckless Carter (Kurt Proctor). Both are recently divorced; Evie’s ex-husband is Duncan (Richard Scott), who is currently seeing the much-younger Caitlin (Carolyn Stone) — and in fact was seeing her even before he divorced Evie, though Evie doesn’t know that.

Through a series of short, comical vignettes, we learn that Carter and Evie want to have a child, but must do so through in-vitro fertilization, due to Carter’s low sperm count. His self-esteem is low, too, as his ex-wife never told him until much later that their baby was not his; furthermore, he is stabbed, shot and fractures his ankle over the course of the play, among other indignities.

We also see that Caitlin enjoyed her relationship with Duncan much better when she was “the other woman.” Now that they’re alone, the excitment is gone.

Evie and Duncan had a son, Jack, and share custody. Trouble is, Evie wants to relocate to the west coast to be with Carter. Now all she has to do is convince Duncan and Caitlin to move there too.

The second act takes place at Duncan’s home, where the four are snowed in and forced to deal with each other. These are people who do not mince words, and the awkwardness is as funny as you’d imagine it to be.

“How can we be good for each other?” Evie asks Carter. “There are so many things wrong with you.”

Or Duncan’s remark to Caitlin, telling her that if they break up, they will NOT remain friends: “When I break up with someone, I want them to die.”

Or this exchange between Evie and Carter. Evie: “Is that an apology.” Carter: “I don’t owe you an apology. But if you think I do, that was it.”

Witty, snarky dialogue like that keeps the play moving, pointing out the absurdities in break-ups, and ending in a way that is comical, yet surprisingly not dark (considering the play’s edginess up to that point).

The style of keeping the scenes short, punctuating them with blackouts and quick set changes, works well — except in a few cases, when comic momentum is just picking up, and suddenly the play, forced to stick to its format, has to end the scene and move on.

All performers are exceptional, with Kathryn Atwood’s Evie really standing out as a woman you don’t mess with, but whom you can’t help falling in love with. Kurt Proctor is also very funny as the much put-upon Carter, especially when he’s saying exactly the wrong thing, as when he first meets Duncan: “So … Evie tells me you’re an alcoholic?”

BYU’s production of “The Secret Garden” is full of style and is nice to look at, but it ultimately has little to make it effective as the touching musical it’s supposed to be. Just like a bouquet of flowers, “The Secret Garden” is real nice-lookin’, but that’s about all there is to it.

Based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s old novel, the story tells of young Mary Lennox (Kathryn Davis), who survives a cholera epidemic in India and soon finds herself shipped off to England to live with her hunchbacked uncle Archibald (Joshua Meyer), who wants nothing to do with her for reasons that are never fully nailed down.

Also living in the gloomy old mansion is Archibald’s brother Neville (David Raphael D’Agostini), a doctor who has been taking care of Archibald’s death-bed son Colin (Adam Steele) for 10 years. Only they keep Colin hidden away in a room — Neville seems to think that if anyone sees him, it will make him get worse. This, of course, turns out to be a load of hooey, which Mary proves as she sneaks in to see him, inspires him to get better, and also revitalizes the old garden — which is not just secret but magical, too — that used to belong to Colin’s dead mother Lily (Betsy Andrews Johnson).

Helping her is the servant girl Martha (Shannon Cook), her brother Dickon (James Mack), and the jolly round gardener Ben (Junior Case). These are cute characters, but their unusual folklore will not prepare you for the sheer weirdness of Mary’s incantations and dances, learned in India, that mysteriously heal Colin. (Sure, 10 years of medical care couldn’t do it. So why wouldn’t a few odd chants with choreography performed in a dead old garden do the trick?)

The problem here is not the strangeness of the plot (which, by the way, also has Colin’s and Mary’s various deceased relatives wandering around all the time, sort of communicating with the living and sort of not). No, the problem is in the characterization: There isn’t any. Mary starts out spoiled rotten and surly; this dissolves almost instantly and inexplicably. Archibald neglects his own son and doesn’t want to visit his wife’s garden, but we never really get inside of him to see why. It is hinted that Neville was in love with Lily, too, but the issue is not pursued (though I’m glad it’s brought up, since the song that mentions it, “Lily’s Eyes,” is the only truly memorable song in the entire show).

Some of these are script problems, but some of them could have been helped if the actors had stronger motives and objectives. Everyone is acting the emotions and not the characters. Instead of seeing “Mary” or “Archibald,” we see “sad” or “lonely.”

Rory Scanlon’s set is impressive and grand, with pieces almost in constant motion during the long exposition. And Janet L. Swenson’s costumes are historically accurate and beautiful.

D’Agostini and Meyer have fanstastic singing voices as brothers Neville and Archibald, and D’Agostini’s acting is better than most. Young Kathryn Davis, as Mary, acts with more skill, and certainly sings better, than most girls her age — but she, too, occasionally winds up melodramatic, particularly in her scenes with the equally over-the-top but golden-throated Steele.

In short, the show is superficially magnificent: great sets, costumes and lighting, and wonderful singing voices from the cast. But there’s nothing underneath it, making the overall experience unsatisfying.

One of Shakespeare’s sunniest, funniest comedies is presented with all due lightness and merriment in a fantastic staging at BYU.

Knowledgeable direction by the venerable Barta Heiner, beautiful and colorful sets by Rory Scanlon, and a handsome cast of fully committed actors make the Bard accessible and — most importantly — jubilantly entertaining.

Melissa Yacktman, cast against type as Beatrice, gives a commanding performance as the sassy, pre-feminist independent woman with the sharp tongue. Beatrice is engaged in a “merry war” with confirmed-bachelor Benedick (James Mack), the two of them constantly sparring, apparently the only two people in the world unaware that they’re actually in love with each other.

To alleviate that, their friends and family conspire to engage in conversation they know will be eavesdropped upon by just the right people, and which will give Beatrice the impression that Benedick is in love with her, and vice versa.

In fact, this fast-paced little romp relies heavily on eavesdropping and spying. The other plot involves Claudio (Dustin Condren), who plans to marry Hero (Michelle Faraone). Claudio’s pal Prince Don Pedro (Neal C. Johnson), however, has an evil brother named Don John (Dax Craven) who wants the marriage to fail. To that end, he arranges it so that Claudio will think Hero has been unfaithful, which leads to a rather messy scene at the altar, punctuated by the rage and disappointment of Hero’s father Leonato (J. Scott Bronson).

The cruelty of Don John’s plans is lightened somewhat by a tone of delightful melodrama in the performances. Dax Craven and his henchmen, played by Christian Sampson and Jonathan Tolman, even have fake sinister laughs they use when they plot, as if to remind the audience that no matter how mean-spirited they are, hey, it’s just a play, all right? And of course it’s all going to turn out fine in the end.

This light-hearted attitude carries throughout the play, stumbling only in the scenes with the guards and the local law enforcement, who learn of Don John’s designs. Where the other performances have been more subtle and smart, these guys are just a little TOO silly, almost self-consciously so.

Aside from that, “Much Ado” never falters, with even supporting roles (like the amazing Richard J. Clifford as an Albert Einstein-coiffed Antonio) played with gusto and great wit, culminating in a finale that is as upbeat and crowd-pleasing as they come.

The Villa Playhouse Theatre continues to stretch its ever-growing dramatic muscles with a production of “To Kill a Mockingbird” that is emotionally rich and well-acted, while remaining very simple and understated.

Of course, the story itself is simple. We’re told in the first two minutes that mockingbirds don’t eat anyone’s garden, nor do they do any other harm, and that to kill one would be an outright sin. You don’t have to have seen very many plays to know what that means: Some character will be shown to be as harmless as a mockingbird, and then will be killed.

The simpleness of the story is part of its impact, though, as it is told mostly through the eyes of a child — Scout Finch (Madelyn Tucker), a tomboyish girl living in segregated Alabama in 1935. Her dad, Atticus (Bill Brown), is a lawyer defending a black man charged with the rape of a white woman — a crime he clearly did not commit.

The racial tensions involved polarize the town, but not to a huge degree — again, this is through the eyes of a child who barely knows what “rape” is. The drama here is mostly beneath the surface.

Young Madelyn Tucker is outstanding as Scout. Good child actors are hard to come by, but she’s a little fireball, holding her own with the grownups, including Bill Brown, who exudes authority and love as the patriarchal Atticus Finch.

Veteran Villa director Kathleen Nutt clearly knows her audience. Dramas don’t do nearly as well as comedies and musicals in this area, so she keeps this one as audience-friendly as she can. The length (less than 2 hours) is appealing, and the scenes flow seamlessly from one to the next, so the action literally never stops.

The tone is also generally fairly light, despite the heavy drama at the center of it — and perhaps it’s too light at times. Some comedy is inherent (like the judge’s declaration, “Let the record show that the witness has not been sassed”); some, like having the judge’s call for a 10-minute recess coincide with the show’s intermission (and our being told that by cast members), is a little silly.

The show still has impact in its finale, though, sneaking up on you with emotion you weren’t expecting, what with the near-levity that prevails prior to it. It’s a strong show for a theater that seems to get better with each production.

An enthusiastic cast leads “Crazy for You” to energetic heights in the current production at the SCERA Showhouse.

Full of singing, dancing, and lots of singing ABOUT dancing, “Crazy for You” features a ’90s script by Ken Ludwig mixed with timeless songs by George and Ira Gershwin (“Embraceable You,” “I’ve Got Rhythm,” etc.).

The story hearkens back to the old days of Broadway musicals, with a simple romantic plot mixed with mistaken identities and a fervent desire among the characters to put together a show. Bobby Child (David Whitlock, also director) is a New York City banker who doesn’t like his job or his fiancee, Irene (Celine Morton). What he wants to do is dance.

He’s sent out to Deadrock, Nev., to foreclose on an old theater. There he falls in love with the only woman in town, Polly Baker (Melinda Stailey), a spitfire of a gal who don’t take no guff from no one — especially not New York bankers who want to shut down her daddy’s theater.

Bobby is sincere in his desire to put on a show that would revitalize the place and save it from foreclosure, but Polly doesn’t trust him. So he impersonates the great Broadway producer Bela Zangler, brings in his old dancing-girl pals from the Big Apple, and puts together a show. Naturally, Polly falls in love with “Bela,” not realizing it’s really Bobby.

When the real Bela (Mark Pulham) shows up, along with the incensed Irene, well, that’s when things really get nutty.

The dancing in this show is fantastic. Choreographed by Carlos Encinias and led by Whitlock and the fabulous cast of nine dancing girls, the big numbers are BIG, with enough tap dancing to shake the rafters. Numbers like “I Can’t Be Bothered Now” and “I Got Rhythm” are memorable for their sheer energy, if nothing else.

Stailey shines as Polly, with a beautiful voice that matches her character. Many actresses would play her as a rough-and-tumble cowgirl, and then start singing like Celine Dion when the music starts, but Stailey manages to blend her beautiful voice with the character.

The jokes are broad and vaudevillian. (“He’ll go to Deadrock over my dead body!” says Irene. “That sounds like a good route to me!” replies Bobby’s mother.) Some actors make the slapsticky humor work for them, notably Morton as Irene and David Morton (filling in for Rodney Elwood) as Lank, the “bad guy” in Deadrock. They have only one major scene together, but it’s a highlight of the show.

Bob Colomb and Jen Pope as a couple of British tourists, on the other hand, are too over-the-top with their characters. The best humor comes when you don’t seem to be trying for it, and they are clearly trying for it every chance they get.

Whitlock leads the cast steadily, singing and dancing well and keeping everything together. He presides over the show more than he stars in it, as the spotlight is often stolen by others. When he’s center stage, though, he shines as brightly as anyone.

The show is a treat to watch. It’s a difficult one to pull off — you gotta have great dancing — but SCERA does it just fine.

Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is a modern-theater classic that is usually described as telling the story of “Hamlet” through the eyes of two minor characters. It does do that, but as the current production at Pioneer Theatre Company so deftly points out, it’s far more complex than it would be if it relied solely on that gimmick.

The two characters, childhood friends of Hamlet’s who are called in to figure out why he’s acting crazy, interact briefly with Hamlet and other “Hamlet” characters. The rest of the time, it’s the two of them alone on stage, talking a lot like “Seinfeld” characters, who in turn talked a lot like Vladimir and Estragon in “Waiting for Godot.” In other words, there’s a lot of quasi-philosophy, wordplay, and rambling about nothing (like Rosencrantz’s dissertation on the phenomenon of an ordinary word like “wife” suddenly looking like it’s not spelled right, even though you know it is).

Rosencrantz (Jonathan Hammond) and Guildenstern (John Leonard Thompson) are two characters in search of their place — not just in life, but in the play “Hamlet” (though they never fully realize they’re in a play). They are generally assumed to be interchangeable in “Hamlet,” a fact underscored by their constant inability even to tell themselves apart. They know they’ve been friends with Hamlet since childhood, but only because they’ve been told that; they have no actual memory of it. In other words, their lives only exist within the framework of “Hamlet,” where they’ve been summoned to the castle by King Claudius. Yet now, for some unknown reason, they are at center stage, for all intents and purposes the ONLY characters in the play — a situation so cosmically backwards that they don’t know what to do about it.

In “Hamlet,” we only see them when they show up to talk to Hamlet. So in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” we see them talking about how they’re supposed to go talk to Hamlet, and then we see them sitting around waiting for a chance to talk to Hamlet. In other words, even though this is their show, they still don’t accomplish any more than they do in “Hamlet.” It’s Tom Stoppard’s huge joke to the world: You want to know what minor characters do when they’re not onstage? You think that would be an interesting approach? Well, guess what. They don’t do ANYTHING when they’re not onstage, because they don’t EXIST when they’re not onstage.

Hammond and Thompson are excellent as the title characters, with a chemistry that makes the show work. One senses that, as different as they are — Rosencrantz is fussy and impatient, while Guildenstern is logical and erudite — they really are best friends who could not function without each other. And this is literally true: How often do you hear of one mentioned without the other? They exist only as a pair, which is why a bond between the actors is so essential. Hammond and Thompson find that bond, and they carry the show through some of its more obtuse and difficult moments with humor and finesse.

Guildenstern is intent on finding order in the universe, and can’t figure out why the normal laws of probability and logic don’t seem to apply to them. The reason, which they never figure out, is that they’re characters in a play, and the laws of the universe don’t apply to fiction. These are characters who ALMOST know they’re in a play — they occasionally ALMOST speak directly to the audience — yet they never become fully aware of it. If they did, they could perhaps control their destiny. As it is, they are at the whim of William Shakespeare, whose will it is that they be killed at the end. It’s a sad and strangely powerful ending to an intelligent, unusual play.

Tom Stoppard’s surreal comedy “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead,” being performed with “Hamlet” as part of the Castle Theatre Festival, has great potential, but Kathy Biesinger’s sloppy directing of it makes it a shambles.

First, the concept is good: It’s “Hamlet,” as told through the eyes of two minor characters. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Cristian Bell and Benji Smith) are Hamlet’s childhood friends whom Claudius enlists to help figure out what’s bothering Hamlet lately. They truly are minor characters in “Hamlet,” but in “R&G,” they take center stage — and they take it, usually by themselves, usually standing around talking about nothing, for over 2 1/2 hours.

Second, the casting is fun. Since “Hamlet” is being performed on the same stage as “R&G,” with the two shows alternating nights, most of the “Hamlet” characters who appear in “R&G” are played by the same actors. If you see “Hamlet” first (which you definitely should, since a working knowledge of that play is essential to understanding “R&G”), it could have been fun to watch the dignified Claudius (Chris Kendrick), so serious and morose in “Hamlet,” act like a ninny in “R&G.” Since “Hamlet” is so good at making the characters seem real, seeing the same actors parody themselves in “R&G” could have been a delight.

But it doesn’t turn out that way. For one thing, Hamlet himself is played by a different actor in “R&G” — David D’Agostini. He does a fine job, but it would have been so much funnier to have David Morgan, who plays Hamlet in the other show, play the part again here — only this time a bit sillier. An opportunity lost, and maybe a small one, but in a show so lacking in bright spots, anything would have helped.

The problem, ultimately, is not the cast members, but the casting. Everyone involved onstage is talented. Cristian Bell and Benji Smith have enormous skill as actors, and they clearly are performing to the best of their ability. But “R&G” lives or dies on the chemistry the title characters have together. Since the play is almost nothing but those two talking, they’ve got to “click” or the play simply won’t work. And Bell and Smith, as good as they are, just don’t make the right combination here. There are moments when you catch a glimpse of what could have happened with more rehearsal, or perhaps different directing — the “asking-questions-as-a-tennis-game” scene, for example — but those are few and far between.

At one point, while pondering the mysteries of fate, Guildenstern yells at the heavens, “We are entitled to some direction!” And you think, “Yeah, he’s right. He, and Rosencrantz, and the entire cast, really could have used some more direction.” The embarrassingly ham-fisted pirate-attack scene is another example of that. It’s as if Biesinger told the actors to get onstage and just run around for a while. It’s oddly choreographed (if it was choreographed at all), and amateurish.

The script to this play is funny; this production of this play is not. It winds up sounding like a bad Elizabethan “Seinfeld,” with the main characters tediously standing around saying things like, “What’s the matter?” “What does it matter.” “Doesn’t it matter?” “It doesn’t matter.” It’s exhausting, really, having to endure so much of NOTHING when it’s not even making you laugh.

Two bright spots: Richard Clifford as the leader of the acting troupe (he plays the same role, with equal skill, in “Hamlet”) performs with energy and zeal. And Michael Cox as Alfred — a member of the acting troupe who usually has to dress in drag — is undignified, silent and very, very funny in his little bits. Often, what he does on the sidelines is far more entertaining than whatever Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are babbling on about at center stage.

“Broadway Bound,” now at the Grand Theatre at Salt Lake Community College, is basically Neil Simon’s autobiography, at least in regards to his breaking into professional comedy writing.

It’s amusing to watch the character based on him, Eugene Jerome (Christopher P. Angelos), make jokes like, “It’s so cold, I saw a man kissing his wife, and they got stuck,” because that’s exactly the kind of “Hey-hey, folks!” joke that Simon’s plays are peppered with. Here, there’s an excuse for hoary old vaudeville shtick like that: We’re seeing how Neil Simon BECAME Neil Simon.

Eugene and his brother Stan (Jim Pitts) live in Brighton Beach, just outside of New York City, with their mother Kate (Jayne Luke), father Jack (David Phillips) and socialist grandfather Ben (Tony Larimer). The time is approximately 1950, when TV is new and radio is still king — but just barely.

Eugene and Stan want to be a comedy-writing team, and they get a shot at writing a sketch for TV, which could lead to their big break. Writers will get much fretful amusement out of watching these two try to overcome writer’s block and come up with something funny. (“I love being a writer,” says Stan. “It’s just the writing that’s hard.”)

Eugene, an energetic, zippy guy, acts as narrator, speaking directly to the audience and filling us in on the details. Despite the show’s central idea of two guys trying to be comedy writers, the play is actually rather sentimental, focusing much time on the strained relationship between Eugene and Stan’s parents, and on their mother’s former days as a dancer.

There is a very charming scene between Eugene and Kate as she recounts her one glorious night, years ago, of dancing with the famous George Raft. Jayne Luke, who is always a delight to watch, fills her role as the now-humorless mother with great soul, and Angelos as Eugene is not a step behind her. The scene is tender and funny.

“Tender and funny” may be the best way of describing the show as a whole. Don’t expect to rupture your spleen laughing; expect to chuckle and occasionally guffaw. Mostly, expect to be interested in the characters and charmed by the proceedings.

Stan points out that characters wanting something, combined with an obstacle preventing them from getting it, equals comedy. “Broadway Bound” shows that the comedy can often be bittersweet.

Is it about two years too late to be making fun of the film “Titanic”? You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

But Murray’s Desert Star Playhouse, home of parodies, melodrama and general mayhem in regards to all things pop cultural, has surprised us again with “The Titanic,” a madcap laugh-fest so funny that it has made me break my personal pledge never to use the phrase “madcap laugh-fest.”

The show tells us specifically that it plans to make fun of the billion-dollar movie, and it certainly does. The Kate Winslet character is still called Rose (played by Chelsea Adams), and her weaselly fiance is still Cal (Paul Thomas Murphy) — but the man who comes between them is not Jack Dawson, but Leonardo DeCraprio (Nathan Stevens, who is a dead ringer for Leo).

Tossed into the mix is the unsinkable Molly Brown (Kori Hazel, also choreographer), who flirts with the ship’s Skipper (Scott Holman, also writer and director), who appears to be a pirate. There’s also the cruise director, Julie McCoy (Julie Ann Christensen), and, inexplicably, Gilligan (Jonathon Phipps), who seems bent on purposely screwing things up.

In order to make the “Titanic” plot fit the standard DSP heroes-and-villains format, Cal is made even more evil than in the film: Here, he MAKES the ship hit the iceberg in order to pretend to lose his huge diamond and collect the insurance money. Once he learns of Rose’s dalliance with Leonardo, he decides to let them both go down with the ship.

The jokes fly fast and furious, and the ratio of good ones to bad ones is astoundingly solid. For every lame pot-shot like “The ship is going down faster than Orrin Hatch’s presidential campaign,” there are a dozen great ones like Cal’s “Pardon my French, but have you seen my fiancee?,” and Molly Brown’s flirtatious reply when Skipper says he has a sextant (“What kind of tent?”).

The entire ensemble is as strong as anything we’ve seen recently, with Holman and Murphy taking the lead, as usual. Holman’s dry delivery, in which every gag seems like an afterthought, makes him even funnier, simply because his performance looks effortless. (Not trying to be funny = being funny.) Meanwhile, Murphy’s hysterically over-the-top Cal fairly crackles with insane energy.

All the parts are played with gusto, in fact, with no one mugging for the audience or begging for laughs — which, again, makes the whole thing twice as funny. “Titanic” needed a good parody, and this just might be the definitive one. Even if it is two years late.

Eric Samuelsen’s ambitious new play “A Love Affair with Electrons,” which he wrote and directed at BYU, tells the story of TV-inventor Philo T. Farnsworth while at the same time examining the impact television has had on us as an audience.

The structure of this busy, strikingly unusual play is a wonder by itself. We’re made to feel like a TV-studio audience, with two live cameras capturing all the action, which is shown simultaneously on a monitor above the stage — meaning you can either watch it “for real” in front of you, or you can watch it “on TV.” And just like at a real TV taping, the cameramen often get in your way, forcing you to watch the monitor.

The shallow narrator, Todd McKay (Casey Griffiths), clearly inspired by Troy McClure on “The Simpsons,” tells Farnsworth’s story in true TV fashion: dull details are made more interesting, events not relating to the story are left out, some outright fabrications are made. His reason? “Why bother with the facts when you can tell such a great story?”

He is the personification of everything that bad TV is: two-dimensional, uninspired and insincere.

His adversary is Pem Farnsworth (Shelley Graham), Philo’s wife, who often interrupts to tell the real, non-TV version of the story. When she does, she goes up into the audience — hugely symbolic, as that’s the one place the TV cameras can’t see her face and put her on the screen.

Ryan Rauzon plays the much-beleaguered Farnsworth with his usual casual energy, fulling dedicating himself to the part while making it look effortless. Graham has more than a few nice moments, too, trying to defend the truth and keep her husband’s story from becoming just a cheesy TV drama.

Each “chapter” in Philo’s life is set up like a different TV genre. This starts out strongly, with his early farm-boy days presented in “Rigby,” a lame sitcom complete with broad acting and braying laugh track.

The genre idea falters after that, though, as there is ultimately little distinction, in acting style or storytelling techniques, between a courtroom drama (“TV Torts”) and a government-agent thriller (“G-Men at War”). These shows tend to be flatly acted and melodramatic, and that’s how they come across here, too. Is this intentional, to show that TV is often superficial, even while it’s telling us a compelling story? If it is, it goes on for too long. We can accept, for a while, that everyone’s over-acting on purpose because that’s how TV does it — but after a while, it stops being an indictment of bad acting and just becomes bad acting, an unfortunate misuse of a very talented ensemble cast.

There is much to love about this play, though. In ways both subtle and obvious, it shows how TV skews reality. We see two actors sitting side-by-side on stage. However, by using two cameras and two different angles, the TV version makes them look like they’re in separate rooms. A man talks on a phone whose cord, we can plainly see, plugs into nothing — unless you’re watching the screen, in which case the camera makes sure not to reveal that fact. Look at the stage and see one thing; look at what the cameras are filming and see something else.

There is also a delightfully wacked-out sense of humor in the pre-filmed commercials that play between segments, showing both a backhanded kind of love and a contempt for TV advertising and all it stands for.

“A Love Affair with Electrons” sticks too close to its format of theater-presented-like-a-TV-show — or, more precisely, its choice of TV shows to mimic doesn’t have enough variety to keep the format going. But the overall impact is thought-provoking and powerful, and its message — about what we watch and what TV has done to us — is fresh and exciting. Turn off the TV and go watch this show.

The songs of Buddy Holly are performed with great exuberance and rock ‘n’ roll fervor, while the life of Buddy Holly is superficialized and glossed over, in the touring company production of a show that has been wowing London crowds for a couple years.

“Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” is a bad name for the show, and not just because it has the word “Buddy” twice. The show makes only half-hearted attempts to tell Buddy Holly’s story: who he was, how he rose to fame, his tragic death in a 1959 plane crash. His offstage life is reduced to a few tritely written, broadly acted scenes, the only real connection coming when Buddy (Van Zeiler) sings “True Love Ways” for his soon-to-be-widowed bride Maria (Victoria Stilwell).

Buddy’s bass player (Steve Friday) and drummer (Fred Berman) cry out to be liked, but their parts are so underwritten that we never get to know them. Our fondness for them is due mostly to their energy and musical ability — so when the band breaks up, all we can do is sit and watch and wonder why everybody doesn’t just start singing again.

The reason most of the acting is overdone is probably that the actors double as singers and musicians in the finale, when Buddy, the Big Bopper (Travis Turpin) and Ritchie Valens (Rob Langeder) perform in Clear Lake, Iowa, just before that fateful flight.

The entire ensemble consists of nothing but top-notch singers and musicians, and some of those rock ‘n’ roll numbers are truly electrifying.

There’s no denying that the show is entertaining, if you take it as nothing more than a rock concert that pays tribute to Buddy Holly with a shell of a plot surrounding it. The problem is that if you’re going to try to tell his story, do it for real. I would have no problem with a show that was JUST a Buddy Holly tribute concert. I also would have no problem with a show that attempted to tell his life story, with some of his songs quite naturally thrown in to the mix.

But this show tries to do both, and the concepts trip over each other. The “life story” scenes, as mentioned, aren’t much good. The “tribute concert” angle is much, much better — but it gets slowed down by the dialogue scenes.

If you’re a Buddy Holly fan, see this show for a vivid re-creation of his best work, fantastically and lovingly performed. If you’re looking for biography or insight, forget it.

Why would you want to see a one-woman show about the life of Mormon pioneer Polly Matilda Merrill Colton, whom you’ve probably never heard of?

Because everyone, no matter how ordinary, has an interesting story to tell. That’s the idea behind “Polly: A One-Woman Musical,” starring Johanne Frechette Perry, written by her husband Steven Kapp Perry, and currently playing at the Little London Dinner Theater.

By her own admission, Polly is a non-famous, unremarkable gal. In 1891, at the end of her life, she tells the audience that if they want remarkable women, they should read about “Eliza R. Snow … Smith … Young … or whoever she’s got herself attached to lately.” Or Mary Graves, a Donner Party survivor who ate belts, shoes, and her fellow travelers.

Such is the irreverent frontier humor possessed by Polly (who is the great-great-great-grandmother of Steven Kapp Perry). Her introduction is as an old widow in Ashley, Utah (now called Vernal), but she soon takes us back to when she was 14 and having crushes on boys in her little Shelby, Mich., schoolroom.

Perry plays Polly at every age from 14 to 75, subtly changing her voice and mannerisms as she grows older. (By the time she is 75, she has also acquired a rural Utah accent.) She tells us her story through conversations with other people (whom we don’t see or hear), through speaking to us directly, and through quite a bit of singing. The songs are generally tuneful and pretty, often funny, always well-written and intricately rhymed. (Polly’s song about Salt Lake City is a classic, with lines like “Got no use for the great bald eagle / Our state bird’s a regurgitatin’ seagull,” and a sly reference to polygamy.)

Polly marries Philander Colton, and they are converted by missionary Parley P. Pratt. They have children, one of whom dies as a baby — a fact that is not merely glossed over, as is often the case in pioneer stories. Polly mourns the loss deeply, and with great emotion.

Philander later serves in the Mormon Battalion, leaving Polly to cross the plains with her kids, some sickly oxen and a stubborn cow. The deaths of loved ones are the only major catastrophes in their lives; this is not a story that is driven by exciting plot twists or incredible miracles.

Which is precisely the point. Though Polly insists she’s quite unremarkable, by the end she — and we — realize that anyone who joins the LDS Church, crosses the plains, settles in the wilderness and lives to be 75 is pretty remarkable indeed.

Perry’s incarnation of Polly is solid and believable. Anyone planning to do a show in which they are the only character had better catch the audience’s interest, and Perry manages this beautifully. You find yourself glad she’s the only character, because she’s so fascinating, beautiful and strong that you don’t want to be bothered having to watch anyone else. Her singing voice is heavenly, her acting skills energetic and focused, making this a truly enjoyable show.

UVSC’s ambitious season of interesting stage plays continues with a re-creation of a 1943 French adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone.”

The cast is small, and their voices almost echo as they traverse the sparse, multi-cornered, red-and-black set. It’s a hollowness that serves the play, as a smaller space might have made the dreary story seem too warm and intimate.

Set in Nazi-occupied France, the story is of Antigone (Heather Ferguson), daughter of Oedipus (yes, THAT Oedipus). Her brother has just been killed in battle, and her commander-in-chief uncle Creon (Robert Manning), who didn’t care much for the boy (“a rebel and traitor,” he calls him), has ordered that decompose in the street rather than receive a proper burial.

Antigone can’t bear the thought of this, and despite protests from her wishy-washy sister Ismene (Nanette Pawelek), she buries the body anyway. For her, there is no decision whether to obey an unjust law or to follow her conscience; she’s following her conscience, no matter what.

This leads to Antigone’s death. Thank you and good night!

You have to give the UVSC Department of Performing Arts credit for choosing a play that is not a crowd-pleaser, and whose appeal lies mainly in the bold performances from its leads. Heather Ferguson’s Antigone, described by the narrator (Tara Brewster) as a “dark, tense, serious girl,” is all of those things. Ferguson avoids melodrama and brings us real passion and intelligence in a role that could easily turn maudlin.

Robert Manning at first seems to be only generically evil as Creon, but as time goes on, we see more facets to him. He hardly seems evil at all, in fact; just narrow-minded. It is he who has the “fatal flaw” often spoken of in tragedy, not Antigone (it’s hard to think of moral righteousness as a flaw).

In theory, “Antigone” is supposed to make us think about the possibility of modern-day tyrants, and how we would react to them; in reality, that message doesn’t quite strike the heart the way it would like to. Nonetheless, as a showcase for some good acting and an opportunity to see in performance a play you may have had to read at some point, “Antigone” is a sophisticated, earnestly played theatrical experience.

Hale Centre Theatre West Valley’s “The Most Happy Fella” is a mostly happy musical, filled with fantastic singing, dancing and merriment, but slightly hindered by problems in the show’s structure and plotting.

Set in 1934, the story is about Tony (Bruce Bredeson), a Three Tenors-looking Italian fellow who owns a winery in California’s Napa Valley. He is beloved of all his employees and friends, but his love is for a woman he doesn’t even know — a waitress named Amy (Anne Barrus), whom he calls Rosabella.

He leaves her a simple, heart-felt note after eating at her restaurant — everything Tony does is simple and heart-felt — and the two engage in a correspondence. She doesn’t remember him as a customer, so she asks for his photo. Fearing that she will think him too old and fat, he sends a picture of the strapping young Joe (Michael Maxfield) instead.

On the day that Rosabella is to arrive so she and Tony can be married, Tony is dismayed to learn Joe is still around (he thought he was moving away). Naturally, Rosabella thinks Joe is Tony, and after learning the truth, she feels humiliated and seeks comfort in Joe’s arms, liking him a lot apparently because he’s attractive.

The marriage takes place anyway, largely due to Rosabella’s sympathy for Tony after he’s in a car accident. The rest of the play focuses on … well, a lot of things. She doesn’t need to “learn to love” Tony; she already fell in love with him through his letters. If his being older than her is an issue, it’s not made to seem like a major one.

Just when you think things are settling in for a nice resolution, though, there’s a new conflict late in the second act. This helps establish that while Tony was wrong for sending Joe’s picture, Rosabella is not perfect either.

The problem is, Tony’s and Rosabella’s reasons for committing their separate mistakes are not really explained. We know Tony was afraid Rosabella wouldn’t like him if she saw what he really looked like, and his thought process when he sends Joe’s picture is rather touching, as he recognizes himself as too undesirable. But what did he think would happen when she showed up to marry him? It’s a terribly ill-conceived plan, making him look like a mischievous child who thinks only as far ahead as his next lie. Rosabella’s actions seem just as strange and under-explained.

That, ultimately, is the point of the show — that we often go against all rational thinking and do things that simply don’t make sense. The show’s awkwardness in expressing this may be because we’re not accustomed to our musical characters being so human.

Performances all around are top-notch — one of the hallmarks at Hale Centre Theatre West Valley. Bredeson is especially good as the loud, kind-hearted, stereotypical Italian who frequently acts on impulse rather than reason. Barrus is also sympathetic as Rosabella, and Jeni Carver as her waitress friend Cleo commands attention every time she appears.

The show features quite a few big song-and-dance numbers, each more rousing and energetic than the last. The pre-recorded musical accompaniment often sounds annoyingly synthesized, but the boisterous voices and comical proceedings generally make up for that.

If you’ve ever wanted to see a semi-lame TV sitcom performed live on stage, you’ll want to check out Hale Center Theater Orem’s “The Other Side of Love.”

Written by the venerable Ruth Hale, this family comedy set in the ’50s features overly precocious children, stock characters and situations, and set-up/punch line exchanges that shouldn’t make anyone laugh. (Example: “She’s got a real cool personality.” “Yeah, she’s so cool she’s below freezing.” Cue laugh track.)

The crisis at hand is that teen-age daughter Holly (Kathy Wahlquist) is dating a guy from the “wrong side of the tracks,” a hoodlum named Bill (Ryan Radebaugh) who, naturally, wears a leather jacket. Her father (John Paulk) is against it; her mother (Tani Radebaugh) is a bit more understanding.

Meanwhile, though, Holly is also hanging out with a girl named Chris (Ashley Radebaugh), the only interesting character in the play, whose language and leg-wrestling Mother finds objectionable, while Father thinks they should cut her some slack.

There’s also a teen-age son, Dick (Jason Purdie), whose girlfriend Audrey (Katie Purdie) is the aforementioned frozen one. As soon as we meet her, we see how generically snooty she is, and if we’ve watched even one minute of TV in our lives, we know she’s going to be dumped so that Dick can pursue his sister’s friend Chris instead.

Oh, and there’s that obnoxious little sister, Lanis (Jessica Paulk), a role that is written so that you never want to stop smacking her. (Kudos to young Paulk, probably a very sweet girl in real life, for pulling this one off.)

Ruth Hale herself plays hoodlum Bill’s grandmother, whom our family invites over for dinner so they can learn more about Bill’s background. Audiences coo when she comes onstage; the woman has earned her reputation as Utah’s theatrical sweetheart. She makes up for frequently forgetting her lines by sweetly making ad-libs about her bad memory.

Let’s face it, though, her plays tend to be like this one: predictable, sitcom-y, broadly written, and with dialogue that no one would ever say. (One character actually refers to kisses as “busses” in this play.)

Until we actually meet Bill, we tend to agree with Holly that her parents are being over-protective, perhaps even snobby — especially since they keep focusing on his social status, when the real issue is that he’s an abusive jerk (a fact Holly’s parents are unaware of). Then we meet him and hate him. The message? Listen to your parents, they know love better than you do, even if they disapprove of the guy for the wrong reasons. Realistic, maybe, but drearily unromantic.

Traditional ’50s blandness mixed with the occasional laugh and warm heart is what to expect from “The Other Side of Love.” It’s written poorly, but performed with sincerity, and it’s undeniably (and perhaps undeservedly) a crowd-pleaser.

Two words sum up the best reason to see “The Sound of Music” at the SCERA Showhouse in Orem: Margo Watson.

Watson’s clear, expressive voice and enthusiastic performance as Maria almost carry the show. Rare is the scene in which she appears to which she does not add radiance and charm.

Probably the show’s most sincere, touching moment comes when she and the Mother Abbess (Nannette Neubert Wiggins) discuss Maria’s love for Capt. von Trapp, culminating in the song “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.” This is, alas, about the only time when the acting among the supporting cast does not seem strained and overdone.

The entire cast is blessed with fine singing voices, and the show has a great deal of singing. From the beautiful “Edelweiss” to the toe-tapping “Do-Re-Mi,” some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s best creations live in this show. But whenever the singing stops, giving way to long stretches of dialogue, things slow down considerably. It would seem that as actors, many of these performers are really good singers.

The scene in which Capt. von Trapp (a very stiff Neil Whitaker) first introduces his seven children to their new governess, Maria, seems almost interminable. The same goes for Rolf (David Benson) and Leisl’s (Whitney Williams) scene, and practically everything with von Trapp’s dull girlfriend Elsa Schrader (Sherry Harward) and the unfunny comic relief Max Detweiler (K. Scott Harward) — that is, until the songs start. Then, the pace picks up and everyone who’s just been going through the motions — which includes nearly everyone except Watson and the kids — starts performing in earnest. Between songs, it’s as if death takes the stage. The acting is broad, and the comedy doesn’t inspire laughter.

“The Sound of Music” is from a different era of musical theater, a time when a character could say, “Let’s sing about a herd of goats!” and everyone would do it. The story and characters still work today, though, as does the wonderful musical score. But the show needs performers who can sing AND act to carry it along. Otherwise, at 2 hours and 45 minutes, you run the risk of making your audience feel like they’ve sat through a marathon.

When you hear “children’s theater,” you might think of little shows about fairies and princesses, being performed by sixth-graders.

But BYU’s Young Company is different. Not only are all the performers grownups, but their current show, “Goodbye Marianne,” playing at BYU through Feb. 26 and touring to schools later, is about Jews living in Nazi Germany in 1938.

Obviously, The Young Company has great faith in the ability of children to empathize with real characters, and to be interested in things other than magic and Pokemon. (Last year, their show was about a boy with AIDS.)

The wonderful thing is, it really works. “Goodbye Marianne” speaks to children without pandering to them. While all the horrors of Hitler’s Germany are not discussed (this is 1938; the worst atrocities hadn’t happened yet), they are not glossed over, either. The main character is a little kid. The little kids watching her are little kids, too. They connect.

It helps that Marianne Kohn is played by Cyndi Ball with the aplomb, fear and spunk typical of children. Ball is a college student, but her Marianne is every bit a little girl, sitting on a bench marked “Aryans only” not out of defiance, but out of true childlike stubbornness.

The play starts with her and all other Jewish students being kicked out of the German schools. Her mother (played with reserved compassion by Laura Hoppe) tries to make things as good for her as possible, even while her father (Matt Biedel) has gone missing.

Eventually, Marianne is able to leave, thanks to the “Kindertransportes,” a system whereby 10,000 Jewish children were evacuated from Germany before the war started.

For children, who may not know much about Nazi Germany, the play offers a touching story about their fellow kids. For adults, it answers questions most of us never thought to ask before: What would it have been like to be a Jewish kid in 1938 Berlin? Would you go to school? Would you play with your friends? Would you have fun?

Hitler’s evil is a perfect contrast to the innocence of youth, and “Goodbye Marianne” is a sober and heartfelt reminder that there’s always hope for the future — and that our children’s purity is what gives us that hope.

Bill and Marilyn Brown’s new Little Brown Theatre, across the street from Springville’s increasingly respectable Villa Playhouse Theatre, is the perfect intimate setting for Robert Harling’s funny and personal “Steel Magnolias.”

Though often considered a “chick play” (and admittedly, there’s not a single man in the cast), this production is likable and witty, regardless of the audience’s gender.

Set in a beauty salon in rural Louisiana, the play covers nearly three years in the lives of six women. Each of the four scenes takes place many months after the last, and thanks to some very smooth dialogue, we learn everything that has gone on.

When we begin, it’s Shelby’s (Sharee Gariety) wedding day. Her mom, M’Lynn (Robinne Booth), is proud as can be, but worried about her headstrong daughter. Shelby is diabetic, and doctors have said she shouldn’t have children — but when, in a later scene, she announces she has become pregnant, she insists she will have the baby no matter what.

There are more surprises and heartaches in store, and the play shows how these strong women — these “steel magnolias” — use humor and love to work through them.

The entire cast is likable, though Claudine Boothe is a standout. Her character, the widow Clairee, is a sassy old gal without being a stereotype, and Boothe’s portrayal of her comes off as sweetly real.

Gariety is a natural as Shelby, too, as is Booth as her mother. Booth is the only one who gets to show much intensity of emotion, and she handles her scene well.

Arlene McGregor is hysterical as the cantankerous old spitfire Ouiser, spitting out lines like, “The only reason people are nice to me is that I have more money than God.”

In fact, this play thrives on that sort of attitude-heavy Southern talk. Someone is described as not having opposable thumbs; someone says she looks “like a dog’s dinner”; someone is said to be so confused, “he doesn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt”; someone else is troubled, but it’s “nothing a handful of prescription drugs couldn’t cure.”

Kaye Pead as salon-owner Truvy and Darcy Moody as new-girl-in-town Annelle round out the cast. Pead seemed unsure of many of her lines on the third night of performances, and Moody overplayed her nervous, “I have a dark past” routine a bit too much, but both eventually fell into their roles adequately.

I’ve seen this play before, but I don’t remember finding it nearly as funny as I did this time. Kudos to a mostly nimble-tongued cast and a veteran director (Kathy Llewellyn) for a show that draws its audience in even closer than they already are in the tiny Little Brown Theatre.

When you hear “Steel Magnolias,” you probably think of the 1989 “chick-flick” starring Dolly Parton, Sally Field and a bunch of other women. If you’re a man, you probably roll your eyes; if you’re a woman, your eyes might well up with tears.

I will not deny that the stage version of “Steel Magnolias,” currently opening Provo Theatre Company’s 1998 season, is probably more appealing to women than men. All six characters are women, after all, and all the “action” (such as it is) takes place in a beauty parlor in the South. It’s a comedy, mostly, but a very gentle one, and much of the humor is geared toward women. And yes, at the end, you are obligated to cry.

None of which means men shouldn’t see it. On the contrary, good theater is good theater, and Provo Theatre Company knows what it’s doing when it comes to good theater. Under the direction of Susan Whiteknight (who also plays the crotchety Ouiser Bordreaux), PTC’s “Steel Magnolias” is a bit uneven, yet ultimately satisfying and entertaining.

The six women who spend each Saturday at the salon are endearing souls. Truvy Jones (Julie Crow Williams) is the sassy owner of the salon, saying things like “There’s so much static electricity in this room, I pick up everything except money and boys” and “Time marches on, and eventually you realize it’s marching right across your face.” Annelle (Melanie Nelson) is her naive, overly religious assistant; Clairee (Ruth Allred) is the rich-but-nice aging debutante; M’Lynn (Toni Edson) is a fairly normal, non-descript gal whose daughter Shelby (Amber Edson) is getting married when the play begins; and the aforementioned Ouiser is rich-but-grumpy (but of course has a heart of gold underneath).

The entire play consists of the six of them (or various combinations of the six) sitting around the salon gabbing. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes it’s touching; in the end, it’s heart-breaking, as Toni Edson gives a wonderfully real performance. Through all the yakking, bickering and gossiping, we learn how much we, ourselves, would do for our loved ones, and how much these six fictitious women seem like people we can relate to. The bond of sisterhood among them really is touching.

The play is not without its flaws. On the night I saw it, several lines were flubbed, and sometimes they were punchlines — lines that would have been funny, had they been delivered better. Also, the costume changes between scenes necessitate some rather lengthy waiting in the dark, which can make an audience lose interest.

Still, the two women sitting directly behind me apparently loved the show to pieces. In fact, they couldn’t stop talking about it from the moment it began until the moment it ended. (They weren’t very good at whispering, either.)

And even though I’m a guy, I liked it too. Parts of it drag, and parts of it aren’t as funny as they should be. But when the emotion is called in, it’s right there, front and center, making guys like me start to — well, start to feel the emotion.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s something in my eye….

BYU’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s theatrical curiosity “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” helps point out exactly what a critical review is supposed to do: We ask the question, “What was this production trying to accomplish?” Then we ask, “Did it succeed? Why or why not?”

The production, directed by David Morgan, seems to keep with Brecht himself in its intentions: to be an unusual experience for the audience, at times entertaining, at times thought-provoking, and at times just damn weird.

Eric Fielding’s set design has some audience members sitting on the stage, which takes up the entire area — there is no wing space or backstage area; it’s all open. All the lights are visible instead of being hidden by curtains, some characters are played by more than one actor, with the performers changing a few simple costume items right in front of us in order to make the transition, and occasionally, lines of dialogue are projected onto a screen in the back. When the actors aren’t onstage, they’re sitting off to the side, watching, like we are.

Brecht, rather than wanting to pull people into a different world for a couple hours, wanted instead for them never to forget that they were watching a play. Mission accomplished.

The basic story is about a servant woman named Grusha (Amy Ashworth Barrus), who is in love with the soldier Simon (Mason Lefler). He has to go off to war, but she promises to wait for him. In the meantime, the governor gets killed during an uprising, and his wife (Amber Helm) sorta kinda forgets about her baby in all the brouhaha, leaving it for Grusha to pick up and care for as her own.

She marries an old, dying man in order to make “her” child legitimate, and the baby grows into a young boy (played by a creepy-looking marionette manipulated by two cast membrs). After a while, the governor’s wife shows up again and wants her baby back. So whose child is it? The one who gave it birth, or the one who cared for it?

It’s a pretty simple storyline, and it’s ultimately settled in a Solomon-like manner by the dishonest-but-wise Azdac the judge (Ary Farahnakian).

What makes the play un-simple are all the odd factors surrounding the story. Fourteen actors play nearly 100 characters, often using masks that, rather than distinguishing them, make them all look the same. Characters occasionally break into song. The first 20 minutes of the play are chaotic, incomprehensible madness, leaving you hopelessly lost and hoping the whole show isn’t like that. (It’s not; the aforementioned simple plot kicks in after a while.) The play supposedly has a very strong anti-war sentiment, but one only knows that from reading the program.

There’s a loooong flashback about how Azdac became a judge, and the sequence typifies the play as a whole. It’s interesting to watch, occasionally humorous, undeniably strange — and in the end, I still have no idea how, exactly, he became a judge. The characters all know, but they didn’t explain it very well to me.

You know you’ve got a strange show on your hands when intermission is filled with half the audience trying to explain to the other half what has just happened.

So does the show warrant a good review? Yes. It accomplishes its goals, and it’s done with gusto and dedication: For as weird as the show is, it never seems to be TRYING to be weird.

Does that mean it’s something you’ll enjoy? I don’t think “Caucasian Chalk Circle” WANTS you to enjoy it thoroughly. It wants to you to be confused, and even put off now and then. But whatever it tries — whether it’s comedy, strangeness or depth — it succeeds at it.

We theater critics are getting tired of saying it, but it’s true: Off Broadway Theatre does best when it performs its own shows.

OBT-written shows are loony pop-culture parodies, filled with puns, sight gags and improvisation. They fit perfectly with the theater that is also home to the Quick Wits improv troupe — especially since the shows are usually cast with Quick Wits performers, guys right at home winging it now and then if need be (or even if not need be).

Putting them in someone else’s show reigns them in, and it doesn’t help when the play being done — currently “The Nerd” — is a mediocre one to begin with.

Architect Willum Cubbert (Ben Porter) is having a birthday party, thrown by his girlfriend, Tansy (Sheryl Coe) and a woman named Axel (Shauna Scott), whose relationship to the other two is never really established.

A surprise guest turns out to be Rick Steadman (Shawn Zumbrunnen), a guy who saved Willum’s life back in `Nam. They haven’t seen each other since then, and everyone is horrified to find that Rick is a hyperactive, socially inept nerd who plans to stay at Willum’s house for a week or more. Willum refuses to throw him out, though; after all, the guy DID save his life.

Zumbrunnen plays Rick whole-heartedly and with great physical agility. His voice is a combination of Bill Murray’s “Caddyshack” character and Adam Sandler’s “Waterboy” character. Unfortunately, while Rick is funny for a few minutes, he’s too one-dimensional to last. The situation would make a great five-minute comedy sketch; as a full-length play, the character doesn’t hold out.

You gotta give playwright Larry Shue (“The Foreigner”) credit, though, for finding a number of innovative ways for Rick to annoy. He does bad impressions, tells boring stories, has disgusting eating habits, ignores others’ personal space, and makes the party group play pointless games (“Shoes and Socks” being his favorite).

Aside from entertainment derived briefly from Rick’s antics, about the only other major laughs come from Willum’s boss Ticky Waldgrave (Robert Bogue), an immature, bombastic loud-mouth. He has no idea how to discipline his rambunctious son, who also comes to the party; when the boy locks himself in the bathroom, Ticky offers him $50 to come out. When the boy demands more, Ticky yells, “I’ll see you in hell first!” The idea of a cutthroat businessman treating his son the way he’d treat the CEO of a rival company is hysterical. Alas, it soon goes away, and we’re left with a show that, like the title character, wears out its welcome way too fast.

Salt Lake Acting Company’s world-premiere production of Julie Jensen’s “Two-Headed” is a mixed bag of history, emotion and loads of dialogue, almost as double-minded as its title.

The play consists of five scenes, each taking place in the backyard of a Southern Utah home belonging to Lavinia’s (Anita Booher) family. In the first scene, best friends Lavinia and Hettie (Valerie Kittel) are 10 years old, and it’s 1857 — just after the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The following four scenes take place in 10-year intervals, ending in 1897 with the women now at age 50.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which 127 Missourians were killed while heading to California, is a dark chapter in Utah history. At first the attack was blamed on the Indians; later, the truth came out — that the Mormon Church was behind it (how high up the church’s hierarchy knowledge of the incident went depends on which historian you ask).

In “Two-Headed,” Lavinia’s father is the local commander, and directly responsible for the attack. This knowledge traumatizes the young, already somber-minded girl. In the remaining scenes, Lavinia becomes increasingly bitter, first because her friend Jane has died, then because polygamy is being practiced and Hettie has married Lavinia’s father, then because Lavinia’s husband is marrying Hettie’s daughter.

Meanwhile, Hettie remains strong in the faith, at times almost chirpily optimistic. The two are friends for most of the time, though Lavinia has a hard time forgiving Hettie for marrying her dad.

Performances from both actresses are quite strong. Though the sets are simple and abstract, and the performing area small, the women draw the audience into their world with remarkable sensitivity and passion.

Ultimately, this play is about how the Mountain Meadows Massacre scarred Utah the people who witnessed it. It could be applied universally to the devastating effects of any major tragedy, but little attempt is made to do that. “Two-Headed” seems content to JUST be about Mountain Meadows.

In that area, it comes up short. Mountain Meadows was awful — but everyone knows that already. If the point of the play is to tell us that, then it’s belaboring the obvious.

Jensen’s dialogue captures the unique way of speaking found in rural Utah 100 years ago, while at the same time sounding too theatrical and stagy — you know, when the conversation sounds like one you would only hear in a play, and never in real life.

“Two-Headed” is fascinating and well-acted. Emotionally powerful? Not as much as it would like to be. Able to change an audience’s opinion on an issue? No. We already knew Mountain Meadows was bad; do we need to be told again?

The view from the bridge is a rather bleak one, as Arthur Miller does what he does best: presents human frailty and weakness at its finest.

Unfortunately, the Pioneer Theatre Company production doesn’t quite live up to its source material, offering us a lot of intensity but very little real emotion.

In the early ’50s, Eddie Carbone (Mark Elliot Wilson) is a hard-working longshoreman in Brooklyn. He is, in the words of the play, “as good a man as he had to be in a life that was hard and evil.” (How’s THAT for ominous?) He lives with his wife, Beatrice (Lisa Bansavage), and her neice, Catherine (Sabrina Veroczi). Catherine has lived with the couple all her life, since her parents died, and Eddie is having a hard time letting her grow up. He’s also become, unfortunately, a bit inappropriately attached to her.

All of this is exacerbated when two of Bea’s cousins arrive — as illegal immigrants — from Italy. Marco (Jim Iorio) is a quiet fellow who just wants to send money back to his wife and kids; Rodolpho (Jay Stratton) is a carefree, dancing, singing, blond-headed guy who takes a liking to Catherine right away.

Eddie suspects Rodolpho only wants to marry Catherine in order to become a legal citizen; he bases this primarily on the fact that Rodolpho “ain’t right” — that is, Eddie thinks he’s gay.

Eddie’s jealousy and rage lead to an act of betrayal that is meant to inspire great disapproval among the audience, but which really just seems rude more than anything else.

And therein lies the problem. As Eddie, Wilson storms around like Stanley Kowalski (a role he played here last year), only slightly less violent. He’s an emotional guy, sometimes even crying, but we never quite get inside his head enough to see the import of what’s going on. I don’t know whether to blame the acting, which seems to be solid all the way around, or the writing, which is structured so that within 10 minutes of this big “betrayal,” the play has suddenly climaxed and ended.

The tragedy never really sinks in, despite the intonations of Alfieri (Benjamin Stewart), a lawyer who narrates the play, who says that he loves Eddie because he was so human, so himself. One wants to be moved by the play, but the play doesn’t offer much assistance.

“Noises Off” is what every show at the Utah Shakespearean Festival should be: well-acted, impeccably timed, brilliantly staged and (as is appropriate with the comedies) screamingly funny.

The play opens at the final dress rehearsal of “Nothing On,” a generic farce full of word play, slamming doors and mistaken identities. Sarcastic director Lloyd Dallas (A. Bryan Humphrey) sits in the audience, slowly burning over the fact that the show opens tomorrow, yet is far from ready.

Dotty (Libby George) can’t remember her stage directions. Garry (David Ivers) is a fatuous actor-moron who knows his lines well but can’t express himself in real life. His co-star, the air-headed Brooke (Gwyn Fawcett), is the worst actress alive and spends all her non-acting moments stretching or doing breathing exercises, and occasionally looking for her lost contact lens, which pops out often. Freddie (Henson Keys) doesn’t understand most of the play and gets a nosebleed at the first sign of violence; Belinda (Fredi Olster) is more interested in sharing gossip about the cast than performing; and Selsdon (Charles Metten) is a washed-up old drunk who turns up missing as often as Brooke’s contact lens.

The hour-long first act of “Noises Off” consists of the the first act of “Nothing On,” which should only take about 30 minutes. It’s the constant starting and stopping that stretches it out, and it’s during the down time that we learn of Garry and Dotty’s affair — even though she’s old enough to be his mother — as well as the dallying between Lloyd and Brooke, as well as between Lloyd and stage manager Poppy (Beth Guest).

All of it is ingeniously funny. The dry British wit of the flustered director, combined with the outlandishness of the actors, makes for some fine moments. But at the same time, we’re also actually seeing, in pieces, “Nothing On,” which itself is rather funny, in a generic, stupid way.

Act II of “Noises Off” is backstage after the show’s been going a month. We’ve learned the play from watching that disastrous rehearsal; now we hear and occasionally see the actors out on stage performing it, while mayhem reigns backstage. Dotty and Garry have had a fight and are trying to kill each other; Lloyd is trying to make up with both Brooke and Poppy; people are trying to keep bottles away from Selsdon — and everyone’s still making their entrances and exits, too.

This second act is nothing short of brilliant, a farce about the staging of a farce in which the actors are as addled as the characters they play. If anything, it’s occasionally TOO chaotic, with so much going on that you’re not sure where you’re supposed to be looking.

The third act lets up a little in the pacing, putting us again out in the audience, this time two months later, when the show’s a complete wreck. Dotty has completely given up, speaking directly to the audience and changing all her lines and blocking. Garry is trying to improvise his lines to explain the various unscripted occurrences, but Brooke refuses to say anything other than what’s in the script, even when it no longer makes sense. Others are trying desperately to keep things on track. Poppy is pregnant.

At its high points, “Noises Off” is a frenzy of inspired insanity, the laughs coming so fast you can hardly keep up with them. The show runs steadily and evenly, with each performer throwing himself with full vigor into the senseless goings-on.

Rebounding from an opening 10 minutes that are rather slow, Provo Theatre Company’s “Little Shop of Horrors” emerges to become a powerhouse, a morbidly funny musical that will have you laughing and tapping your toes, even as you’re wondering how a show about a man-eating plant could possibly be so entertaining.

Taking place in the ’50s and featuring catchy, wittily rhymed songs reminiscent of that era, “Little Shop” is about a skid-row nobody named Seymour (Josh Meurer) who works in a flower shop owned by the grumpily Jewish Mr. Mushnik (Ward Wright). He finds an unusual fly-trap plant and names it Audrey II, in honor of his beautiful co-worker (Kelly Fotheringham).

That co-worker is a scrawny, frail gal in an abusive relationship with an evil dentist named Orin (David Barrus). (“Sure, Seymour’s the greatest/But I’m dating a semi-sadist,” she sings contemplatively). She’s platinum blond, but not dumb: She just lacks self-esteem.

Seymour soon learns that the only way for Audrey II (the plant) to thrive is to feed it blood. It grows tremendously, bringing success to the business and fame to Seymour. But soon Audrey II starts talking (voiced by the soulful Daniel Law) and demanding not just blood, but meat, and promising untold personal success if Seymour complies. Finally seeing some hope of happiness in his life, he reluctantly finds people to feed to the plant.

It’s horrifying on paper, and it’s certainly a dark, campy comedy. But it’s also surprisingly meaningful. No one-layered farce, this: The characters develop, have moral dilemmas, and make decisions. A Greek chorus-style trio of singers (Marcie Jacobsen, Suzie Jacobsen, Jamie Kalama) narrates much of the action — fitting, since the play has many elements of a Greek tragedy.

Fotheringham is a standout as Audrey, flawlessly conveying the character’s sweetness and vulnerability. It is she who makes the play touching — yes, touching — in a couple scenes, especially as she manages to sing the parodic-but-sincere “Somewhere That’s Green” without a trace of irony. When she rhapsodizes about living in a tract home and “watching `Lucy’ on our big, enormous 12-inch screen,” she MEANS it. Guileless and tragic, Audrey makes or breaks the show. Here, she makes it.

She has help from David Barrus, whose dynamo performance as the dentist provides the show’s first major laughs. Meurer, as Seymour, acts the nebbish well, often with explosive energy — though, curiously, he seems not to act much when he’s singing. This presents a problem mainly near the end, when he makes his major decisions in song. We hear the words and we understand his dilemma, but we don’t see it in his face or hear it in his voice.

Clever special effects allow the crocodile-mouthed plant (puppeteered by Paul Johnson) to move, speak and eat, and eventually to dominate the stage in a finale that is much better than the watered-down version in the popular 1986 film.

Provo Theatre Company has been looking for a hit show to help boost ticket sales. If there is any justice in the world, this will be the one. Do yourself a favor and see it.

Making the story of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” into a Broadway musical is either going to work because of the seeming incongruity of the two genres, or it’s not going to work for the exact same reason.

If the touring company is any indication, the idea is a good one, but it comes up short when actually executed, despite excellent production values, solid acting and a tunefully dark musical score.

Chuck Wagner is large in both stature and voice in the dual roles of Henry Jekyll and his libidinous alter ego (well, alter Id, actually, if you want to get Freudian), Edward Hyde. His Jekyll is a bit non-descript, driven with firm but vague passion to find a way of separating man’s good and evil parts. But, to paraphrase “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” bless his beautiful Hyde! All that separates the two physically is that Hyde slobbers a lot and has mussed-up hair (while Jekyll’s is pulled back in a small, anachronistic ponytail). But Hyde’s voice is more of a lecherous growl, and his physical presence on stage can be a true terror.

Wagner shows his best stuff when Jekyll and Hyde finally battle it out (in song, of course), flawlessly alternating back and forth between the characters in a rapid-fire war of words.

The supporting cast, unfortunately, don’t have much to add to the show, and that’s one of its flaws as a musical. Jekyll is engaged to the well-off Emma Carew (Kelli O’Hara), but we see very little of her. We see more of a showgirl named Lucy (Sharon Brown), whom Hyde falls for. The psychological dramas here, of Emma slowly losing her fiancee and Lucy falling in love with a man who can do her nothing but harm, have fascinating potential. But as much as “Jekyll & Hyde” wants to be a character study about hypocrisy and the dual nature of man, it’s really just a horror story that doesn’t get horrific until half-way through it.

So we have O’Hara and Brown belting out some beautiful songs with beautiful voices — but they’re songs that do nothing for the show. We have no emotional investment in these characters. Frankly, when Jekyll and Hyde aren’t warring with each other, or when Hyde’s not killing people, the show just isn’t very interesting.

As a book, it works fine. As a musical, it’s too dark, too tragic, and too devoid of meaningful characters to come across as anything more than a slasher story that’s been padded with ineffective attempts at psychological commentary. It’s a classic example of a great production of a mediocre show.

UVSC’s production of Neil Simon’s highly personal “Chapter Two” adroitly captures the ups and downs of trying to piece your life back together after a tragedy, making full use of the excellent dialogue Simon has given them.

George Schneider (Paul Walstad Jr.) is a recently widowed novelist whose brother, Leo (Brett Merritt), keeps trying to find him some companionship. After a series of disastrous dates, Leo finally finds a winner: TV actress Jennie Malone (Brittany Thompson), the friend of Leo’s former lover Faye (Courtney Young).

George and Jennie first communicate over the phone in a series of calls that combine to make a brilliantly played scene. Their two living rooms are side-by-side on the stage, and though the actors never look at each other, they connect wonderfully.

It gets even better when they actually meet. Simon’s gift for snappy dialogue, which usually results in all of his characters being sarcastic, actually makes sense here. It’s the witty repartee they have that draws George and Jennie to each other; if anyone else were writing their dialogue, they never would have made it past the first phone call!

The play is virtually free of conflict for the entire first act — a major no-no, usually, but allowable if the characters and dialogue are engaging. Thankfully, they are here. Walstad’s portayal of George effectively conveys the conflicting feelings the man has: He was completely devoted to his late wife, but now he finds himself falling in love with someone else. Does that mean he has to forget his first wife and move on entirely?

Young is also great as The Best Friend, lifting her character above the stereotypes that usually go with that role. Her Faye is sardonic and cynical, but also vulnerable.

Simon’s shticky, vaudeville-style jokes are out in force, too (“Your bathroom’s so cold, your toothbrush could open a beer can!” someone says), but there’s even more dialogue that is laugh-out-loud funny, delivered with impeccable timing by the skilled cast.

Conficts do arise in the second act, and things get a bit more serious, but the play remains warm-heartedly entertaining to the end.