Stephen Sondheim’s dark masterpiece “Sweeney Todd” is not an easy show to do, but UVSC has pulled it off pretty well.

Set 150 years ago in London, the musical tells of the barber Sweeney Todd (Andrew McKee) who has just come back to town after being falsely imprisoned by the evil Judge Turpin (Mark Wilson). Seems the judge took a fancy to Sweeney’s wife and needed to get rid of hubby so he could have her to himself. Well, Sweeney’s pretty ticked off now — even moreso because his wife is dead and their daughter, Johanna (Amber Edson), is now in Turpin’s clutches.

His plan of action is to kill the judge and his sidekick, the jovial (but apparently still evil) Beadle (Cameron Cahoon) by luring them to his barbershop and then slitting their throats. But as anyone who has ever committed vengeful murders can tell you, plans tend to go awry, and this is no exception: Sweeney decides to take revenge on the entire town instead. Now, any man who wanders into the shop, Sweeney kills ’em. What’s more, he slides the bodies downstairs to Mrs. Lovett’s (Courtney Young) bakery, where they are made into meat pies.

Most of the music is in a minor key and almost tuneless; the plot is macabre; the main character is indefensibly twisted and arguably more evil than the people he sought revenge after — it’s the feel-good hit of the season! You can see why it’s difficult to make a show like this enjoyable.

But UVSC succeeds pretty well. A solid performance from McKee as Sweeney helps tremendously. The makeup makes his eyes seem hollow and sunk back into his head — he almost looks like the monster he is. But he has a winning smile, almost belying the insanity that lurks beneath and giving the character dimension. Young’s Mrs. Lovett is wonderful, giving the show life, variety and a little comic relief. Sweeney and Lovett have a marvelous chemistry together as she initially goads him on and then tries gamely to bring him back from the brink of disaster.

Edson’s Johanna and Joseph Stone’s Anthony (Johanna’s suitor) have fabulous singing voices and make their subplot — the only glimmer of hope in the show — stand out.

The main problem with the production is sound. The actors aren’t miked, and they are often drowned out by the 10-piece orchestra (led admirably by Sean Jackson). In a show that is almost all singing, and much of it intricately rhymed, we need to be able to hear every word.

The show is not for everyone, perhaps. The man behind me at Saturday’s performance said it was “morbid” (he said this in a regular speaking voice, by the way, and several times throughout the show, which made me wonder if he was raised in a place — perhaps on a foreign planet — where talking out loud during a theater production is acceptable). Morbid may not be the right word, but it is a little disturbing (although, frankly, I was more bothered by the guy behind me talking incessantly than I was by the play’s content).

But ultimately, the dark themes are necessary to make the point: that revenge and hate can consume a person. It’s a powerful message, and one that can only be driven home effectively through extreme measures. “Sweeney Todd” does have its fun, light moments — watch Sweeney sing sweetly about Johanna’s beauty as he slits men’s throats, for example — and it’s not oppressively dreary. It’s an enjoyable theater experience, performed well by the UVSC cast.

BYU Theatre, on a seemingly unstoppable winning streak this year, has scored again with “A Man for All Seasons,” playing through Feb. 6 in the Margetts Theatre.

Director David Morgan has compiled a marvelous cast with not a weak link in it, and the play — despite being extremely dialogue- and message-heavy — moves along briskly, almost lightly.

It is the 1520s, and King Henry VIII (Chris Clark) is no longer satisfied with his wife Catherine. He wants to dump her and marry Anne Boleyn (whom, history will show, he later beheaded anyway), but the Catholic church won’t let him. So he has begun spreading the word that his marriage is not valid in the eyes of God anyway, citing a Bible verse that makes it wrong to marry your brother’s widow, which Catherine was. And if the Pope won’t let him divorce her, and forces him to stay in this “sham” marriage, then the Pope must be off his rocker, which means the king is under no obligation to follow him, which means he is free to start his own church — the Church of England, as it came to be known.

Enter Sir Thomas More (James Claflin), the king’s new chancellor and friend. More is the most moral and upright of men, a truly good-hearted individual who even allows his daughter to marry a Lutheran, despite his own personal allegiance to the church of Rome. He is a cautious man, avoiding even the appearance of disloyalty or disobedience.

So when the king wants to know More’s opinion on this whole “Church of England” thing, it gets messy. Actually, the king knows his opinion — everyone does, just by inference — but More has been careful not to SAY it. As long as he doesn’t, he’s safe from treason charges. He won’t even tell his loving, long-suffering wife (Tavya Patch) or his loving, long-suffering daughter (Emmelyn Thayer), just in case the king hauls them in and forces them, under oath, to say what they know: If they don’t know how More feels, then they can’t tell anyone.

For this silence — and for his refusal to sign a loyalty oath (and, more maddeningly, to even say WHY he won’t sign it) — More is cast in prison by the scheming Cromwell (Scott Christopher). And yet he never backs down from his principles. This is frustrating at times, as we wonder if it’s really worth it all. As he is in prison, his family is starving. Where do you draw the line? Does loyalty to God always override loyalty to family? These questions are not completely answered, and that’s the point. “A Man for All Seasons” is written like an ethics textbook case study (in fact, it WAS a case study in the ethics class I took), and there are no right or wrong answers. What is right for More isn’t necessarily right for everyone else — the point, ultimately, is to obey your conscience.

James Claflin is fantastic as Thomas More. The character never fails to be believable and genuine, with just a hint of enigmatic charm. Chris Clark has very little stage time as the king, but he makes that time count, rocking the theater with the charisma, energy and wit that have become his trademark as an actor. His scene with More is the moment at which the audience becomes hooked, and the play never lets up from there.

Ryan Rauzon is solid as More’s son-in-law Roper, and Chris Kendrick — another excellent local theater personality — is dignified as always in his portrayal of Chapuys, a Spanish dignitary who also seeks to know More’s mind.

Tavya Patch and Emmelyn Thayer wind up with little to do as More’s family — until the jail scene, when they bring forth a whole play’s worth of emotion. Watch as More’s wife (Patch) is whisked away, and we realize he will probably never see her again. Watch his forced cheerfulness as he says, “Goodbye, my love” as she is sobbing, being pulled away by the jailor. That one devastating moment works powerfully because of the superb acting skills of those two performers — skills that run through the entire cast.

The play’s ending is not entirely happy, but it doesn’t seem sad, either — and I guess that’s the point. A man standing up for his beliefs is admirable, noble and magnificent, never sad or pathetic. The idea of such dedication to one’s own morals almost seems quaint in this day and age, but “A Man for All Seasons” makes it sound like a good idea again.

I’m not sure what possessed Carlisle Floyd to write an opera version of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” but the result, while awkward in a few places, is nonetheless mostly effective and satisfying.

Being staged through this weekend by the Utah Opera at the Capitol Theatre, “Of Mice and Men” stays scrupulously close to the book on which it is based; there are no deviations from the plot with which you are no doubt at least vaguely familiar already. George (Stephen Bryant) and his gentle-giant friend Lennie (Michael Hendrick) are running, having lost another farm-hand job due to Lennie’s not knowing his own strength. Seems poor Lennie is often killing things accidentally, simply because he pets them and squeezes them too hard, and people have a difficult time with that.

All Lennie and George want is to buy a little farm together and live out the American Dream (albeit without wives or children). Lennie wants to pet the rabbits, and George wants to relax for the rest of his days in an idyllic setting. It’s a pleasant dream, and one that they’re fixed on. As life becomes dreary — and this opera is intentionally, powerfully dreary almost with reprieve from beginning to end — their dream of their little farm brings Lennie and George happiness.

The two find jobs at a ranch owned by the grouchy Curley (Michael Myers), who enjoys ignoring his sympathetically trashy wife (Diane Alexander) and berating his hired help. Trouble begins when Curley picks a fight with Lennie, which ends in Lennie crushing Curley’s hand like a potato chip. Trouble continues when Curley’s Wife (that’s the character’s official name) decides to leave her suffocatingly boring life on the ranch and head out to Hollywood to be a star, except she stops to let Lennie touch her soft hair, and somehow her neck winds up broken.

And that’s when it gets really sad. The entire show is grim and desolate, right down to the sets and costumes. (Even the dresses worn by Curley’s Wife, while rather colorful, seem muted and desperate.) The music fits the atmosphere — or, perhaps, the music CAUSES the atmosphere — filling our ears with jarring chords, odd rhythms, and dissonant sounds. At no point will you tap your toes, nor will you walk out humming anything. In fact, there really aren’t even any “songs,” much less any arias, in the opera — it’s all one long continuous piece of music. And it’s all dreary.

No one has any hope. In fact, fellow farm-hand Slim (Jeffrey Buchanan) encourages George NOT to have hope, because every farm-hand has the same dream, and it never comes true. Still, George is adamant, insisting he and Lennie will be different.

Nonetheless, the two characters who show the most hope — Curley’s Wife (when she decides to leave) and Lennie — are the two who wind up destroyed, never realizing their dreams.

Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe the only way to actually get what they hope for is to leave this desolate, awful world. Indeed, as George describes the mythical farm to Lennie one last time, and Lennie finally “sees” it, that’s when the music finally stops being intentionally ugly and becomes beautiful. In his mind, Lennie is truly there at the farm, finally at peace with himself and the world, and finally out of trouble once and for all.

The story is a powerful one anyway, of course — the popularity of the novel and the two movies based on it bear that up — but the addition of music heightens it. The themes of hope and hopelessness are pinpointed, and the tale is as effective is it was in print.

It is occasionally awkward to hear the characters sing about ordinary, mundane things — we’re used to operas being about fantastic, fairy-tale subjects, not everyday things like this — but only in passing. In the end, the story is rich and lovely, and the performances outstanding.

Usually, when I recommend a show at Murray’s Desert Star Playhouse, it’s with a disclaimer: “See this show if you don’t mind some eye-rollingly bad jokes and if you want a silly, sort-of funny evening out with the family.” I’ve seen the last 12 shows there, and while we generally enjoy them, we also recognize that we’re not usually talking about cutting-edge comedy here.

But with the current show — “Hamlet: This Ain’t Exactly Shakespeare” — I can recommend it without reservation: This is a funny show. Not funny in a dumb way (though there is a little of that), and not funny in a you-don’t-get-out-much-do-you? way (though there is a little of that), but deliciously, uproariously, even intelligently FUNNY. It is hands-down the best of the last 12 shows at this theater.

The show opens with a bang, as Jamie Victor belts out a fantastic parody of “On Broadway” (“In Denmark”) in which she brings us up to speed on what’s going on: Prince Hamlet’s father has died, and his brother (Hamlet’s uncle) has married the queen. Hamlet (Paul Thomas Murphy) is upset by this, and he soon learns, thanks to a visit from his father’s ghost, that the new king, Pernicious (Ben E. Millet) — it’s Claudius in Shakespeare’s version — was responsible for the old king’s death. Hamlet vows revenge and gets into an even deeper funk.

So far, the plot is pretty close to the original. This being the Desert Star Playhouse, though, our heroes need to be black-and-white, with no gray areas. So Hamlet can’t kill Boloneus (Gordon Johnson) (I know, it used to be Polonius), even in a fit of rage. Instead, Pernicious the Bad Guy does it and frames Hamlet. Also in this version, Ophelia (Julie Ann Christensen) doesn’t die, nor does Queen Gertrude (Lynda Robyns), nor does Hamlet. And the ending is definitely a happy one, complete with a group hug — quite a departure from the death-filled Shakespeare. (The show freely admits its alterations in the closing number, “All’s Well That Ends Well.”)

The show is full of non-stop laughs, thanks largely to Murphy’s performance as Hamlet. He is understated, almost subtle — rather unusual for the broad Desert Star — and his expression indicates he knows as well as we do that the show is nuts.

Assisting him tremendously is Scott Holman, who plays Horatio. The two make a great comic duo, especially in the hysterical graveyard scene involving Yorick’s skull — one of the funniest single scenes I’ve ever watched.

And though her character is somewhat in the background, Jamie Victor’s Helga — the minstrel who comes to sing for the royal court (instead of the full acting troupe in Shakespeare’s version) — is delightfully funny. Victor has a huge lunatic grin on her face much of the time, and she’s got more energy than an atom bomb. Watching her bounce around is sheer joy.

As mentioned, there are some typical Desert Star-style jokes here, the kind where they walk up to you and smack you in the face with them. To wit: “You can trust me. I’m as trustworthy as the president of the United States!” (Get it?!) But there are also some legitimately clever parts — many of them, in fact. Like this exchange, dealing with an air-headed character: “I’ve never been so insulted!” “Sure you have, you just didn’t get it.” Or the song sung just before intermission, to the tune of “That’s Entertainment”: “Make a call on your cellular phone/Move your car from the handicap zone,” etc.

In all, “Hamlet: This Ain’t Exactly Shakespeare” is fast-paced, loopy fun, full of energy and zeal and one joke after another. You don’t have to know the original show to appreciate this parody; all you need is a sense of humor. They don’t come much funnier than this.

Thanks to a bit of cosmic luck, Pioneer Theatre Company’s production of Wendy Wasserstein’s “An American Daughter” is opening at a time when some of its main plot elements seem to be torn from today’s headlines.

Smart and solidly liberal Lyssa Dent Hughes (Joyce Cohen) has been nominated by the president to be the new Surgeon General. All she needs now is the confirmation. Before that can happen, though, as a vacuous TV news reporter follows her around for a fluff piece, it comes out that she once semi-inadvertently skipped out on jury duty. She also makes a couple of remarks that, out of context, sound like she’s ripping on stay-at-home moms and old-fashioned, “traditional” families.

If there’s any phrase that clearly bespeaks the tone of the 1990s, it’s “media frenzy,” and that’s what ensues after the breaking of “Jurygate.” Friends and family are called upon to stick up for Lyssa, and she agrees to do a follow-up interview to try to set the record straight — with mixed results.

Surely the ways in which this plot seems real need not be explained. But ultimately, the play is not about media hype and sensationalistic journalism (which is nice, because those things have been done to death). It’s about the point in one’s life when you think, “What have I DONE with myself?” Nearly everyone in the play, to some extent, struggles with this question. Lyssa begins to wonder if she’s accomplished everything she thought she had. Her best friend, African-American-Jewish Judith Kaufman (Angela Bullock), despises men but wants a baby — and is distraught at being unsuccessful at it. Lyssa’s husband Walter (Geoffrey Wade), thanks to an astonishingly, jaw-droppingly stupid maneuver, may have irreparably damaged his marriage. Lyssa’s father, conservative Sen. Alan Hughes (Robert Peterson), has just gotten married for the fourth time.

Is anyone satisfied? Many of them have the things that seem like they SHOULD guarantee happiness — social and political success, families, careers, money, etc. — but still they wonder what they’ve really accomplished.

“An American Daughter” is a grown-up play, where kids are heard and not seen. There is humor, but it is intellectual and not silly (the delightfully gay Morrow McCarthy (Chris Mixon) tells a bitter Judith: “Your non-practicing heterosexuality is eliminating your joie de vivre“). The script is smashingly intelligent, without seeming snooty — much like the characters themselves. No broad strokes with these people: Even the vacuous TV guy (Ron Nummi) and the flamboyant homosexual have some real edges on them, not two-dimensional cut-outs like you’d see in a more wacky comedy. This is a smart, thought-provoking play.

At the end of “A Christmas Carol,” we are told that Scrooge has changed his miserly ways, and we are left to assume that Bob Cratchit will forgive him for all the years of mistreatment. But what if it’s not that easy? “A Christmas Carol Part II,” the Road Show-style lump of silliness going on at Salt Lake’s Off Broadway Theatre through Jan. 2, explores those very issues.

Written by Bob Bedore, who also plays Bob Cratchit, “Part II” takes place a year after the story we’re familiar with. Scrooge (Eric Jensen) has indeed changed — but not necessarily for the better. Instead of being stingy, he now gives money to everyone who asks for it, including swindlers and con-artists. All you have to do is mention ghosts and chains, and Scrooge will be frightened into giving you whatever you want. He’s gullible and naive now, and everyone’s taking advantage of him.

Taking the most advantage of him is good ol’ Cratchit. Seems he’s still pretty bitter about all the meanness he got from Scrooge all that time, and he’s not about to forgive and forget. With the aid of his now-gargantuan Tiny Tim (Robert Bogue), he plans to embezzle clients’ money, make it look like Scrooge did it, and then take over the business.

Scrooge gets another visit from Jacob Marley (Cody K. Carlson) — watch for the amusing joke about Jacob’s face appearing in the office door’s window — and then from the three ghosts from before. Each of them tries to help Scrooge learn that giving out of fear isn’t the way to go — he needs to give out of love.

It’s a good message, and one that has not been beaten to death already. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way of writing the script, Bedore forgot to put very many jokes in. The last show at this theater, “Dracula vs. the Wolfman,” which Bedore and Jensen wrote, was hysterical, packed full of pop culture references, amusing characters and great sight gags. “Christmas Carol,” though, seems weak and tired. Bob’s elaborate lies to Scrooge become very tedious, and with only one or two exceptions, the songs — all familiar Christmas carols with new lyrics — don’t really even TRY to be funny. They come across as slow and cumbersome, slowing down the pace of the show dramatically and adding nothing to it.

There are certainly some funny bits, particularly when things go wrong and the actors have to improvise (many are also members of the Quick Wits improv troupe), but overall, the show plods along wearily. Bogue makes the most of his Tiny Tim character, playing him as a slow-minded over-grown half-wit, with very amusing results. Also, Jensen plays Scrooge very well, and he has proved his comic abilities in this past. Here, you can just see him itching to bust out and DO something, but unfortunately the strained jokes in the script give him little opportunity.

Add to that the two jokes stolen directly from TV — one, about “the exact moment his heart breaks,” from “The Simpsons”; another, about “he’s got my nose,” from “Cheers” — and you’ve got a show that, while long on good intentions and great potential, comes up short on actual entertainment and originality.

Back by popular demand after last year’s successful run, Provo Theatre Company’s “A Tuna Christmas” is as funny, silly and poignant now as it was then.

The same two actors — Charles L. Frost and Duane V. Stephens — play 22 different characters, male and female, in the small town of Tuna, Texas, on Christmas Eve. Ed Gryska directs the show again, guiding us through the intersecting lives of 22 of the oddballs, rednecks and just plain folks who inhabit the town.

Last year’s production was so near-perfect, it would have been unwise to tamper much with it. Fortunately, little tampering has taken place. The set is different, and a few lines are changed — references are made to Donny Osmond and his ubiquitous “Technicolor Dreamcrap,” and there’s a sly nod to “Titanic” — but overall, everything is just as I remember it from last year.

Tuna, Texas, is a quirky, strange little town that is just like a thousand towns we know of. The residents, while odd and funny, are nonetheless only about one degree off from our friends and neighbors. People here have names like Garlinda Crump, Farley Burkhalter and Didi Snavely. The town has activities like the Klan-sponsored “Christmas family night and skeet-shoot.” Bertha Bumiller (Stephens) is a sweet, middle-aged housewife whose gentle nature has been taken advantage of by her drunk, philandering husband. Vera Carp (Frost) has won the town’s lawn-decorating contest 14 Christmases in a row, and she’ll be darned if she’s going to lose this one. Aunt Pearl (Stephens) is an old biddy with a limp, but she’s a feisty old gal, killing bluejays with a slingshot and orchestrating some mischief to keep the town on its toes. Didi Snavely (Frost), owner of Didi’s Used Weapons (“If We Can’t Kill It, It’s Immortal”) is a caustic, chain-smoking grouch whose husband is a drunk and whose mother is insane.

I could go on and on. The point is, these characters are REAL. They are necessarily drawn with somewhat broad strokes, but Frost and Stephens play them so realistically that the humor becomes even funnier. Rule One of comedy is that people relate better to — and therefore can laugh more with — real situations and real people. And “Tuna Christmas” follows that rule to a T, with brilliant results.

Not only are the characters real, they’re poignant, even touching. Watch town moron (well, one of them) Petey Fisk (Frost) tell his pet coyote, iguana and sheep about the first Christmas. Watch Aunt Pearl give the hooligan Stanley Bumiller a new life for Christmas. Watch Bertha and local DJ Arles Struvie share some candid moments and eventually slow-dance at the radio station. It’s all funny, but it’s kinda sweet, too.

The laughs are plentiful — I’ve never seen a play with such excellent verbal humor, full of wit, sarcasm and energy — but when the play decides to be a tender, it works fabulously. It’s not forced, nor is it maudlin, trite or syrupy. It’s genuine and wonderful.

Bertha — perhaps the most warm, endearing character in the show — sums it up perfectly when she says: “Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying.”

There are a few visual jokes in the show, mostly related to the audience’s initial reaction upon seeing the outlandishly costumed Frost and Stephens, but by and large, the humor is verbal. The characters are snarky and quick-witted, talking about everyone behind their backs. Various people are referred to as being “loopy,” “a slobberin’ hippie,” “brain-dead,” and an “old hornfrog.” Someone “looks like death chewing on a cracker,” and someone else is “an over-heated downhill wreck.” Various senior citizens, we are told, are “older than Egypt,” “older than Alley Oop,” and “older than water.” Upon being frightened, someone “screamed like white trash at a tent meeting.” You get the idea.

Frost and Stephens are perfect in their many roles. They don’t do much to alter their voices from one character to another, but everything else — from costumes to mannerisms to inflection — indicates 22 completely different people. They are so effective, in fact, that it’s a little weird to see only two performers come out for the curtain call at the end. One almost wonders where the other 20 are, expecting them all to be backstage still.

For an evening of smart, riotously funny performances and just enough true “Christmas spirit” to put you in the mood for the holidays, you can do no better than “A Tuna Christmas.” Don’t miss it, because who knows if it’ll be back next year?

It’s only a matter of time before saying this becomes cliche, but “Joyful Noise” truly is joyful.

I can’t think of a better way to describe it. The play, written by BYU faculty member Tim Slover*, tells the true story of George Frederic Handel (Richard J. Clifford) and his struggles to write and perform his famous “Messiah” oratorio. The play was performed for enthusiastic crowds in March, and the same director, Bob Nelson, and much of the same cast have come together now for this restaging.

Mixed in with Handel’s story are several other elements. Singer/actress Susanna Cibber (Stephanie Foster Breinholt), once a noted performer in London, has become an outcast, thanks to a major sex scandal. She seeks for redemption and a chance to sing again, while at the same time Handel seeks to regain the favor of notoriously fickle London crowds, and to produce something that will really mean something.

At the same time, King George II (Cameron Deaver) is still in mourning for his wife, who was a big fan of Handel’s. Since her death, he has been uninterested in music, and Bishop Henry Egerton’s (Braden Gregory Bell) insistence that Handel’s music is evil isn’t helping any. Susanna’s old rival, the very catty Kitty Clive (Katie Foster), is tossed into the mix as well, aiding and abetting the Bishop’s crusade against popular music.

So there’s a lot going on, but at the center of it is Handel. Clifford, who was not in the first production, plays Handel as a blustery, prideful fellow, a “poisonous, puffed-up old hog,” as Kitty puts it. Clifford gives the character depth, though, particularly in the scene where he explains to Susanna his inspiration for setting Charles Jennins’s (D.C. Wright) libretto to music. Handel is a fascinating character, full of life, and Clifford nails the role.

Breinholt, too, is marvelous. She is not much of a singer (there’s not too much singing in the show anyway), but as an actress, she is consistently one of the best around. Her Susanna is a heart-wrenching character, full of honest emotion and real tragedy. Watching her slowly work toward redemption almost becomes the focus of the play, though it ultimately remains a complementary metaphor for Handel’s work. Her story and his story work together perfectly.

Also worthy of mention is Colleen M. Baum, who plays Handel enthusiast Mary Pendarves. The character is full of praise and flattery and some very amusing melodrama (“Cease, zealot!” she cries in an impassioned plea against the narrow-minded Bishop), and Baum plays her excellently. The character is not buffoonish, despite being there mostly for comic relief; instead, she adds layers to the play. I honestly think the play would suffer without her, and this production would most certainly suffer without Baum. She, Breinholt and Foster are three of the most talented actresses BYU has churned out in recent memory.

Every part is well-played. The actors are skilled and keep things moving at a brisk pace. One senses that one is watching a group of real professionals at work.

What makes the play effective is that so many of the themes are applicable to modern life. The Bishop is against “Messiah” because he considers it blasphemous to put the words of scripture to “common” (i.e., non-hymn) music. He is opposed to it, despite not having heard it. We chuckle at the irony — here is a Bishop opposing something that we now know to be one of the most religious and sacred works ever produced — and yet, how many of us have been against something without even seeing it, or even really knowing what it is?

At one point, Handel tells the Bishop, “You wanted something very badly, and so you thought God wanted it, too.” This sums up perfectly the motivation behind so many personal crusades that people embark on. Don’t know what “crusades” I’m talking about? Read the letters to the editor of any newspaper in Utah.

Susanna is blackballed mostly because of bad press and rumors, and because people are unwilling to give anyone a second chance, or even the benefit of the doubt. The applications here are obvious.

I could go on and on. Someone should, and probably will, write an in-depth analysis of all the intricacies of this play. It’s that complex, and that beautiful.

But it’s simple, too. The stage is simple, the lighting is simple, the message is simple. Ultimately, everything comes together. The work is performed, redemption is found, hearts are changed, and the audience’s emotions are stirred. The sincere worship of God inherent in “Messiah” becomes the all-encompassing summary of everything else that has gone on, and as the characters sing it in the final moments of the play, we see that the message of the music truly represents the message of all the plots and sub-plots, down to the last “Hallelujah!” of that famous chorus. I defy anyone to watch this play, become caught up in it, and not walk out of the theater filled with the joyful tidings of “Joyful Noise.” It is the sort of play that transcends ordinary theater and becomes an experience.

*Tim Slover was pressured to resign from BYU after having an affair with a fellow professor’s wife, an affair with a student, and at least one attempted affair with a student that was rebuffed and reported. The BYU Theatre Department shamefully kept all of this quiet and allowed false alternate explanations for Slover’s departure to spread.

In the small, intimate setting of BYU’s Margetts Theatre, the small, intimate play “Dancing at Lughnasa” is performed with warmth, humor and emotion.

Directed by Tim Threlfall, the play is the story of five sisters struggling through life in 1930s Ireland, as told by one of the sisters’ illegitimate son. Michael (David Raphael D’Agostini), now grown, serves as narrator, occasionally interacting with his mother and aunts, but mostly just observing.

Each of the sisters faces heartache and pain. Most notable is Michael’s mother Chris (Jannah Ferguson), who is very much in love with the slick, smooth-talking Jerry (James Royce Edwards), the father of her child. She’s in heaven when he’s around and miserable when he’s gone — yet she knows if she were to marry him, he’d only run off on her again.

In the meantime, Agnes (Carrie Lopez) and the slightly dim-witted Rose (Merilee Louthain) knit gloves for a living. Hard-working Agnes has never really known love (though she seems to have a thing for Jack), while Rose thinks she is in love with a man in town whose wife recently left him. Matriarchal sister Kate (Dianna Lynne Errico) thinks the whole thing is a bad idea, however.

Kate thinks a lot of things are bad ideas, in fact, and she usually turns out to be right. A prim schoolteacher and a staunch Catholic, she doesn’t approve of her sisters’ wild dancing and constant use of the radio, nor does she like the way her priest brother Jack (Marc E. Shaw), just back from Africa, seems to have adopted the “pagan” ways of the natives.

There is little in the way of plot in this play, but plenty of emotion and feeling. Music and dancing serve as metaphors for life’s pure joys: often fleeting and too short, but always good for lifting one’s spirits when things are tough.

This production glances over the heartaches of Maggie (Elary Allen) and Kate, but they’re there if you pay attention: Plain-looking Maggie’s childhood friend has married the boy SHE loved, and the fellow Kate was after marries someone else early in the second act. Five sisters, five heartaches, one radio.

All of the acting here is quite good, and the Irish accents are convincing — a little TOO convincing at times, as the words occasionally become unintelligible. Errico is particularly good as the outwardly strong Kate, and Lopez has a quiet dignity about her as Agnes. Edwards is a bit too smarmy as Jerry, and his “Wow-wow!” catchphrase becomes annoying after only one or two uses — but he provides strong contrast to Ferguson’s sweet and loving Chris.

Again, this is a play about characters and feelings, without a lot of action. Fortunately, the characters come alive thanks to strong performances and solid directing. Everyone can relate to at least one of the five sisters in one way or another, and that connection drives home the message of hope and determination.

Despite being about a man who has a sexual relationship with his teen-age niece, “How I Learned to Drive” is not quite as creepy as you might think.

Playing at the Salt Lake Acting Company through Dec. 13, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play uses humor and stylization to keep things from becoming a non-stop squirm-fest — though rest assured, the play can certainly make you squirm when it wants to.

The central character is Li’l Bit (Shauna Scott), a teen-age girl of Southern heritage whose real name we never learn. In her family, everyone receives nicknames based on their genitalia — hence grandfather Big Papa (Tobin Atkinson) and mom’s brother-in-law Uncle Peck (Eric Robertson). Offensive, sure, but the family background — which is revealed, as is the rest of the story, piece by piece via flashbacks and narrations — goes a long way toward explaining Li’l Bit’s complicated situation.

She occasionally seems to be the aggressor in the relationship with her uncle, using him to fulfill her need for a strong male figure (her father was not around); it is not until the end of the play that the oldest flashback is shown, demonstrating how the whole thing began with a driving lesson, and making it clear that Peck is to blame for it all.

Or is he? This is a complex play, without much black-and-white. Li’l Bit is a victim, to be sure, and Peck is the filthiest of scoundrels whose own motivations are merely hinted at — but they don’t always act those parts. Li’l Bit is sometimes a Lolita character, using her feminine wiles to get what she wants, and Peck is occasionally benign (yet with creepiness always lurking beneath the surface). Li’l Bit survives the ordeal and grows to adulthood, but by no means is there a “happy” ending, with her triumphantly overcoming everything she went through. Indeed, perhaps the most unsettling image of all is very near the end, when we are shown vividly how Peck continues to haunt the rear-view mirror of Li’l Bit’s mind.

Sound like fun so far? It’s not, of course — but it’s not an unpleasant evening, either. Three “Greek Chorus” actors (Tobin Atkinson, Teri Cowan and Kimberly Richardson) play the supporting characters, nearly all of whom are funny, sometimes cartoonishly so. Li’l Bit’s mom (Cowan) gives some truly hysterical advice on how a lady should drink (“Avoid anything with ‘voodoo’ or ‘vixen’ in the name”), and the three generations of women discuss men and sex with very amusing results. At one point, for reasons not fully explained, three supporting characters break out into an a cappella, fully choreographed rendition of “My Girl.”

The play is highly stylized, jumping back and forth in time and using “driving” as a constant metaphor. Since the actress playing Li’l Bit is a full-grown adult, seeing her fondled and manipulated by Peck is not as disturbing as it could be. And with Scott playing Li’l Bit at several different ages without so much as changing costumes, and most sets and props being only minimally represented, the play is thankfully “unrealistic” enough to help it go down easier.

Which is not to say “How I Learned to Drive” is not disturbing, unsettling, and occasionally graphic. It is all of those things. Robertson is vile as Uncle Peck, his monologue about fishing (which is a metaphor for his relationship with Li’l Bit) being one of the creepiest things I’ve seen in a while. Scott is excellent as Li’l Bit, too, particularly with the constant change in ages for her. The supporting actors also play their variety of characters with gusto.

The play is an hour and 40 minutes long with no intermission, and it feels like every minute of it. It is never particularly boring or dragging, yet there are times when you begin to wonder what more needs to be said. Many different aspects of the relationship are shown, and the audience slowly begins to understand the whole situation. By the end, you feel like you’ve been through an ordeal yourself, having seen so much of it from so many points of view.

Ultimately, the play is classy, high-quality theater. It is not sensationalistic, nor is it unnecessarily lascivious. It is a gripping story that, while perhaps not for everyone, will provoke thought in anyone who sees it.

Leave it to Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Theatre Company to take a looooong 19th-century French novel and turn it into a play that is powerful and rich with symbolism, but also smashingly entertaining.

“The Count of Monte Cristo,” playing at PTC through Nov. 14, was adapted for the stage and directed by Utah theater mainstay Charles Morey. Having the same man write and direct is dangerous, for it eliminates some of the checks and balances that normally exist. (The writer isn’t going to correct the director on some of his interpretations, for example.) And especially with a work as complicated as Dumas’ “Monte Cristo”! But Morey and his superb cast and crew pull out all the stops and present a marvelous, well-balanced show.

At first the play seems almost to be a shallow, frivolous tale of buried treasure and adventure, like it’s going to be a pirate story or something. (There is one sword fight, but it’s not of the swash-buckling variety.) Edmond Dantes (John Rensenhouse) is locked in prison, having been wrongfully accused and turned in by his former “friends.” The years he spends in jail turn him cynical and bitter, and he plots revenge. As is generally the case in these situations, an old man who has been in prison much longer than Edmond tunnels out of his cell into Edmond’s and teaches him stuff. In particular, he tells him where a treasure is bured on the isle of Monte Cristo, and that with that money, Edmond can do much good and learn forgiveness.

Well, forgiveness, shmorgiveness, that seems to be Edmond’s response. He escapes from the prison by pretending to be dead — they just toss dead prisoners into the ocean, and there’s actually a pit of real water built into the front of the stage! — and he swims to shore, gets the treasure and shows up in Marseilles, Rome and Paris as the Count of Monte Cristo. He’s dressed all in white, acts like a gentlemen, and very gently and cordially plots the death and anguish of all the people who wronged him (none of whom seem to recognize him, don’t ask me why).

And quite a list that turns out to be! There’s Mercedes (Gloria Biegler), his fiancee who left him in prison and married one of his traitorous friends, Mondego (Tracy Griswold), instead. There’s Danglars (Ross Bickell), a now-successful businessman whom the Count seeks to ruin. There’s Villefort, the state prosecutor who has a bit of a dark history that the Count intends on making public. In all, there are four whom the Count wants destroyed, and he will stop at nothing to meet his goals.

As Edmond (or “the Count”), Rensenhouse strides nobly around the stage, seldom lurking, seldom creeping. He is perhaps the creepiest of villains because he makes himself part of normal society, rather than being a raging psychopath. His plans are methodical, never enacted out of rage or sudden inspiration. And his access to old documents and disturbing information makes him reminiscent of the Phantom of the Opera: dignified, intelligent and extremely resourceful. Indeed, he is a super-villain, incapable of being fought because no one realizes until it’s too late that they need to be fighting ANYONE, let alone him.

The Count fancies himself the “hammer of God” — a phrase he uses several times. He sees himself as merely exacting justice upon those who deserve it, being an instrument in God’s hands. However, it is near the end that he realizes what he has really been doing, when Mercedes tells him, “Like Satan, you thought yourself equal with God.” The Count makes reference a few times to his “former life,” and having been “reborn.” Indeed, when he played dead and was tossed in the ocean out of the prison, that seems to have been his journey through death and back again — an unholy baptism, as it were. (He emerges from the water all dressed in white, and remains that way until the end — when his black deeds are so heinous as to show themselves in his now-black attire.)

And somewhere in all that, the play stops being just a cool, exciting story of revenge and becomes a powerful statement on justice, God and forgiveness. The Count cannot forgive; however, when he kills Mondego, Mondego’s son Albert (John Hansen) frankly forgives the Count. This is as hellish a torment as one can conceive.

In an all-too-rushed wrap-up, the Count sees the error of his ways and attempts to make amends, to finally use his vast wealth for good instead of evil.

“The Count of Monte Cristo” is a play that LOOKS fabulous. George Maxwell’s sets, as always, are amazing, with pieces flying up and falling down and sliding off — not to mention the cool water pit in the front! Linda Sarver’s costumes are beautiful and perfectly befitting the time period, as well.

Obviously a 3-hour play cannot entirely do justice to all the themes and plots presented in Dumas’ lengthy novel. But there are only a couple times where things seemed too rushed in the stage version, things you can be certain were developed more carefully in the book. The turnaround at the end is one example, but there are very few others. Overall, this production is fabulously entertaining, not to mention meaningful and important. It’s theater at its finest: well-acted and directed, with plenty of fun and excitement, and a bit of a “take-home” message too.

“I’m stupid, and I like it!”

So declares Billie Dawn, a Broadway-dancer-turned-gangster’s-girlfriend in Garson Kanin’s ’40s comedy “Born Yesterday,” being performed at the Hale Center Theater Orem.

In this often light-hearted but ultimately heavy-handed romp, Billie (Alison Akin) is the main squeeze of the tough-talking, head-busting, senator-buying Harry Brock (David Phillips). When the two of them blow into Washington to purchase a few more Congressmen and stir up trouble, Harry realizes that Billie’s dimness and lack of social graces may be a liability to him (although he’s not exactly the Lord of Gloucester himself). So he hires “New Republic” journalist Paul Verrall (Shane N. Bayles) to tutor Billie in the ways of high society, grammar and current events.

Obviously, Billie and Paul fall in love. She gets smarter, speaking grammatically and realizing how much of the world she missed all this time because she was so busy being dumb. She realizes she’s been a major player in Harry’s shady business dealings, and that she’s been signing papers for him and his alcoholic lawyer (Stevan Davis; double-cast with John Lundwall) without knowing what they are.

Finally, she has to decide what kind of life she wants, and her decision doesn’t exactly make everyone happy, though the play ends happily … er, sort of.

See, while there is a great deal of good, solid comedy in this show, the script climbs up on its soapbox near the end and starts preaching to us. This production spotlights this preachiness, and the play winds up seeming like it’s supposed to be making a profound statement. This would be fine, except that the statement is: Corruption is bad for America. Well, duh. No one needs to be told that. We’re supposed to walk out of the play nodding our heads slowly in agreement, pondering what we’ve learned — but we haven’t learned anything we didn’t already know.

This is a shame, because there are some marvelous performances here. Akin is outstanding as the heart-meltingly beautiful, impossibly dumb Billie. She flits around the room, her mind obviously focused on nothing, speaking in a squeaky Brooklyn accent. She sings lyrics from “Anything Goes” and from the Gershwin song “They Can’t Take That away from Me.” (In one of the more subtle jokes, she sings these lyrics — “The way you hold your knife/The way you sip your tea” — but they come out as: “The way you hold that knife/The way I count to three.”) Billie is a sympathetic, lovable character, and the play is carried on Akin’s very capable shoulders.

Phillips does an excellent job as Harry, too. No one says “Shut up” better than New York tough guys, and Phillips does it with the best of them, speaking like Robert de Niro and buying favors and bossing people around like a guy you wouldn’t want to mess with. But he plays Harry as more than just a two-dimensional bully. When he tells his lawyer that he loves Billie, despite the way he treats her, he really seems to mean it.

Bayles is decent as Paul, though he plays the character a bit less earnestly and a bit more weaselly than he ought to. Paul should be a wide-eyed, idealistic, non-cynical reporter (if there are any like that); Bayles tends to hold the words in the back of his throat, then let them ooze out all whiny and drunk-sounding. Still, he provides a solid foundation for Billie to build on, and he’s a good actor.

The supporting cast is good as well, leaving no weak link in the show. Indeed, the only weaknesses are largely inherent in the script. The first act goes on too long and never really builds up to any high hilarity (though it IS funny); and there’s the aforementioned soapbox at the end.

But overall, the show is entertaining and charming, thanks largely to Akin’s extraordinary performance as Billie.

Lindon’s Valley Center Playhouse, long known for producing amusing, family-friendly shows, continues that tradition with its two Halloween shows: “Hotel Frankenstein” and “Shadowbrook Mansion.”

Running Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and appearing for its 17th year at Valley Center Playhouse is “Hotel Frankenstein,” by Michael Goodman. This well-written play is about Dr. Frankenstein’s modern-day grandson (Kevin Bennett) who, with Egor (Kent Flowers; double-cast on alternating nights with Doug Dial), plans to bring a monster to life using the brain of another person. By turning the Castle Frankenstein into a bed-and-breakfast, they lure in the vacationing Woodknocker family and plan to steal the brain of the father, Julius (Mike Bawden; double-cast with Mike Gray), a Groucho Marx-impersonating professional comedian who lives his life as if he were always onstage.

Complicating matters is the arrival of Dracula (Thom J. Engstrom; double-cast with Chad Robertson) and his wife, Natasha (Stephanie Gray), as well as the Wolfman, Lawrence Talbot III (Brad Andrus). Frankenstein enlists all of their help in planting a certain magical brain-transferring crystal (that’s about how well it’s explained in the play) onto Julius Woodknocker’s person, only of course things get messed up, and I won’t spoil the secret-surprise ending!

There are some charming performances in this show, mainly from Engstrom and Gray as the Draculas. They are both dressed gorgeously, and maybe it’s the European accents, but they have a certain sophistication and dignity about them that makes their performances stand out.

Also noteworthy is Michelle Backlund as the long-suffering Mrs. Woodknocker, and Bawden as her obnoxious husband. The Groucho lines take some real work to deliver properly, and while Bawden was still fumbling over some of them on his first night, he showed real promise in being able to make this very essential role quite funny.

Madeline Watkins is playing Mrs. McGonigal (the Woodknockers’ elderly traveling companion) for her 13th year, and her absurd costumes and Granny Clampett voice make her extremely enjoyable to watch.

On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, you can see “Shadowbrook Mansion,” written by Valley Center Playhouse co-owner Jody Renstrom. This play is more unevenly written than the first, but the performance is more energetic and ultimately more entertaining.

Like “Hotel,” “Shadowbrook” has several famous Halloween monsters gathered together in one place. This time it’s the home of the mysterious Shadow (David Belliston; double-cast with Nate Oldham), who has invited the Wolfman, Egor, the Mummy, the Dracula family (they’re divorced and have two kids in this play) and a couple of witches to spend Halloween weekend with him. Turns out the reason is that he’s going to finally overcome the curse that turned him into a shadow, and simultaneously drink one of the witches’ potions to become immortal. (This is at first an evil thing he’s doing, but later on it seems good, don’t ask me why.) He needs all the monsters there because the potion requires various things from them, which he takes without asking.

This play is also a musical, with eight pleasantly annoying songs involving nearly every cast member and perhaps five different chords. The lyrics are mostly embarrassing (“We followed directions to a `T’/Then we started disappearing — oh my, oh me!”), but I found myself grinning anyway just because everyone seemed to be having so much fun singing them.

Matt Clayton’s performance as the Wolfman is the best performance of either show. He does several subtle wolf-like things, even when he’s still a regular guy, and demonstrates a real flair for comedy. Also quite good, once again, are the Draculas — Brett Merritt and Deborah Tevis, this time. Their little spats are funny (Mrs. Dracula says to her son, “You look exactly like your father. Perhaps it’s just a phase”), and their two children complement them perfectly.

Nearly everyone in this cast is energetic and committed to their goofy characters, making the play an entertaining little comedy with several subplots.

One night about a week ago, early in the performance of “Dracula vs. the Wolfman” at Salt Lake City’s Off Broadway Theatre, the Igor-like Renny Field (Russell Peacock) was applying for a job as Count Dracula’s (Eric Jensen) assistant. Dracula is standing at the top of the stairs, and Renny is down below. He pulls out his resume and is about to walk up the stairs to hand it to Dracula, when suddenly Dracula makes the paper levitate up to him instead. The audience was very impressed and made “Oooh!” noises. Dracula turned to them and said: “Pretty spiffy, huh, folks?”

The reason I specify that this happened “one night about a week ago” is that I have no idea if Dracula will say the same thing the night YOU go. In fact, he probably has no idea either. See, the Off Broadway Theatre is also home to the Quick Wits — an improvistaion troupe. And with many of the “Dracula vs. the Wolfman” cast members being taken from the Quick Wits ensemble, well, improvisation in the carefully scripted show becomes a part of life.

The night I was there, Peacock forgot a few of his lines and had to have Jensen whisper them to him. The audience was in hysterics. Later, Joan Johnson, as Olga DePsychic, forgot one of hers and had to make something up. Again, hysterics. A picture fell off a wall and Jensen danced around with it for a minute; Alexis Owen, as Mary Talbot (the Wolfman’s wife), accidentally knocked some candles over as she went upstairs, causing Peacock to ask her to “try not to knock over the scenery as you go up”; and when someone accidentally made a crashing sound backstage, Jensen remarked, “That’s some pretty big mice we got over there.” All hysterics.

But don’t worry — there’s plenty of funny stuff in the actual script, too, even if nothing goes wrong. The play, written by Jensen and Bob Bedore (who plays Jack Talbot, the Wolfman), is a loony Halloween farce, full of pop culture references, song parodies, terrible puns and perfectly executed one-liners. The plot has newlyweds Jack and Mary Talbot vacationing in Transylvania, where they wind up staying in the old Frankenstein Castle, which is now a hotel run by Dracula — only he’s posing as Dr. Acula, a psychiatrist, and Renny is his bellhop/secretary. (Absolutely the funniest thing I’ve heard in the last year is said by Renny during one of his free psychiatric sessions with Dracula. It has to do with a dream he had recently; you’ll know it when you hear it.)

A policeman, Harry Timms (Dave Hunsaker), warns the Talbots that both a werewolf and a vampire have been terrorizing the neighborhood recently. Jack doesn’t know yet that he, himself, is the werewolf; all he knows is that he disappears at night and doesn’t remember where he goes. And no one knows that Dr. Acula is the vampire — but Willy Van Helsing (Jeremy Thompson), grandson of the famous vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, suspects it strongly, and is determined to prove himself.

Dr. Acula falls in love with Mary Talbot — seems she reminds him of “Hazel,” an old lost love from years ago. So he wants to dispose of Jack so he can have her to himself, and we soon learn there’s more to the fight than that: Werewolves are apparently one of the few creatures strong enough to do battle with a vampire. And so there’s a showdown.

Along the way, there are fantastic comedy performances by every single cast member. Jensen, as Dracula, is a stand-out, making Dracula a funny and sarcastic character. Adding to the humor is that he looks and sounds so scary — making it that much funnier when he does something ridiculous.

Peacock’s Renny character is also amazing. Peacock has a shaved head and a goatee, making him look like a cross between the Three Stooges’ Curly and the guy from Metallica. The character’s voice is by itself chuckle-inducing, and Peacock throws himself so thoroughly into the part that everything he does becomes funny.

Many of the jokes in the play fall flat. Some of them are downright terrible; others are merely dragged out too far. But when you’re doing 12 jokes a minute, it doesn’t matter if even half of them fail — give it 10 seconds, and another one will come to replace it. I honestly can’t remember which jokes I groaned and rolled my eyes at; all I remember now are the ones that were home runs.

There is some genuinely biting satire here and there (“We must destroy that which we don’t understand!” someone yells in imitation of the local, easily frenzied townspeople), as well as some great physical comedy, and of course the inevitable improvising.

Three things keep this show from being perfect. First, there don’t seem to be any microphones onstage, and the theater is rather deep. I was in the second row and didn’t have any trouble, but it was often quiet — I’m guessing people beyond the ninth or 10th row couldn’t hear everything (and this is a show where you WANT to hear everything). Second, at 2 1/2 hours, the show is too long. Even for a “regular” comedy, that’s long — and for a slapstick, farcical parody-type comedy, it’s WAY too long. The first act drags a bit in places; the pace is stepped up big time after intermission. And third, the show occasionally gets too cute for its own good, with too many references to itself. Having the characters “know” they’re in a play, and letting them refer to the scene changes and the audience is funny once or twice, but this show does it about a dozen times.

These are minor concerns, though. “Dracula vs. the Wolfman” is overall clever, fresh, energetic, and hysterically funny. It’s the best Halloween comedy of the season. Don’t miss it.

Salt Lake Acting Company, known throughout the state for doing cutting-edge, critically acclaimed plays that you don’t see anywhere else in Utah, has kicked off its new season with a brightly sad production of “Master Class.”

Written by Terrence McNally (“Ragtime,” “Kiss of the Spiderwoman”), “Master Class” is a Tony Award-winning play with a clever concept. Its main character, fading opera diva Maria Callas (Anne Cullimore Decker) speaks directly to the audience as if we are all observers of the singing class for which she is the instructor.

Maria was once quite the thing on the international opera scene, beating the odds to sing all the major roles, and even having an affair with Aristotle Onassis. Now she is washed up, though she retains her pride and confidence — perhaps more of each than she really has reason to. She is still as self-centered as any diva — fortunate for us, because it means most of the play consists of her talking to us, in one-woman-show fashion, often ignoring, interrupting or speaking over her students.

Decker is perfect in the role of Maria. She is haughty, passionate, professional, beautiful, dignified, aristocratic, funny and, ultimately, desperate. Twice during the play, while her pupils are singing roles she once sang, instead of listening to them in order to give feedback, she comes center stage to talk to us. The arias remind her of her glory days: Lady Macbeth’s evil schemes in particular cause her to relive her own Machiavellian desires in rising to the top of the opera world. But like Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play and Verdi’s opera, Maria doesn’t stay at the top for long, personal and professional tragedy intervening.

It makes for fascinating theater, even though there are virtually no props and no set pieces. Maria’s two long flashbacks, in which she replays conversations and re-enacts performances, are enthralling and captivating.

The weakness in this production, directed by David Mong, is in the supporting characters. Maria’s three students are played by people who, as actors, are excellent opera singers. It ultimately doesn’t matter too much because Maria is the focus anyway, but it is slightly unsettling to see second-rate acting from the characters who should be bolstering Decker’s performance, not detracting from it.

“Master Class” is intelligent without being stuffy. It is very funny in many instances, sad in others, but always dignified — even as Maria quotes Ari Onassis’ vulgar diatribes against her. References are made to icons of high culture such as Medea, Euripedes, Shakespeare, and several famous operas. It’s not for the casual theater-goer, but neither is it pretentious or self-important. Maria emerges as a person as real and as tragically humorous as any opera character.

The story of Count Dracula is played for laughs, not chills, in Desert Star Playhouse’s production of “Dracula — The Vampire: He Loved in Vein.”

In typical Desert Star fashion, “Dracula” is a contradiction of itself. It’s full of bad puns, cheesy jokes and hoary vaudeville-type routines — but then, just when you think the play doesn’t realize how dumb it is, something truly clever and original pops up and you realize the play DOES know how dumb it is. In fact, it’s revelling in that dumbness, and it wants you to do the same.

This is a show that has Dracula (Scott Holman) saying things like “She’s down for the COUNT” and “You tried to double-CROSS me.” Most jokes are used as blunt objects with which to hit you in the head, with musical director David Len Allen using the piano for punctuation — just in case you didn’t realize it was a joke, he’ll trill some of the high notes for you, cartoon-style, as if to say, “Isn’t that funny?!”

And most of the time, it is, though you might admit it only grudgingly. There are references, mostly superfluous, to the Clinton scandal, “Titanic” and of course the I-15 construction. (I have seen the last eight or so productions at Desert Star, and I have yet to see one that did NOT have an I-15 joke.) It’s all endearing, cute and often very, very funny.

The play moves a bit more slowly than most Desert Star productions, taking place mostly in one location — the home of Dr. Seward (Paul Thomas Murphy). His dim wife Mina (Holly Casper) is rather upset at the recent strange behavior of her friend Lucy (Julie Ann Christensen), who has been taken under the spell of Dracula. (Everytime Lucy is referred to, by the way, Allen plays the theme from “I Love Lucy” — in a minor key. I don’t think the audience I was in ever caught the joke.)

Seward’s pal Dr. Van Helsing (Ben E. Millet) shows up to help, and he begins to suspect the work of vampires. He’s right, of course, and everything turns out pretty much the way it does in Bram Stoker’s original story, only it’s a little sillier here.

After the show is the “From ‘C’ to Shining ‘C’ Americana Olio,” a song-and-dance revue full of all-American songs and humor. The Olios are often the most amusing part of the evening at Desert Star, and this one features some of the best Clinton jokes I’ve seen anywhere (he sings “Devil with a Blue Dress” in reference to Monica Lewinsky, among other things). For a theater that delights in its own one-dimensional broad humor, the Clinton satire is clever enough to remind you that Desert Star KNOWS how goofy its shows are, and that they’re goofy on purpose. “Dracula” and the accompanying Olio amount to fun, family-friendly entertainment that lets your brain have the night off.

“Joyce Baking,” the full-length, student-written play opening BYU’s Pardoe Theatre season, may be eye-opening to people who have no connection with the university’s social scene, but tells those of us who live it every day absolutely nothing we didn’t already know.

What does “Joyce Baking,” written by Josh Brady and directed by Eric Samuelsen, tell us about the BYU dating scene? Well, it tells us that guys are jerks, though generally without meaning to be, and that girls are catty and back-stabbing, though generally without meaning to be. It tells us that religion is such a part of BYU students’ lives that they can slip in and out of a spiritual conversation in a matter of seconds, and even combine the sacred and secular in their speech patterns. (One girl insists that since she has no social life, her roommate needs to develop one and tell her about it, in order to perform “vicarious work for the socially dead.”) It tells us that being “nice” is often a liability: “You just have to get to know her to like her,” says one. “Yeah, ‘nice’ people are like that,” says the other.

And ultimately, “Joyce Baking” reminds us that for all the talking we do about the need to be more “charitable” and “Christ-like,” most of us actually do very little toward that end.

The play is the story of two BYU roommates. Joyce (Colleen Baum) is a returned missionary, nice and sweet, very spiritual and “good,” and a great cook. She cooks for everyone; that’s just what she does. Her roommate and best friend is Becca (Jjana Valentiner Morrill), a slightly less mature girl who has made social relationships her life’s work. She knows just how long to date a guy before she kisses him, how to orchestrate Joyce’s life and turn it into something good — everything about relationships except how to hang onto a decent one of her own. She dates losers because she lacks self-confidence, all the while exuding exactly the confidence she seems to lack.

Along comes Alex (Javen Ronald Tanner), a recently returned missionary whom Joyce becomes modestly, blushingly smitten with. She bakes for him in order to woo him — something not uncommon at BYU. And it seems to be working … at least for a while.

The play is a dead-on accurate depiction of the BYU dating scene. The characters talk and act exactly the way BYU students talk and act, and what is so noteworthy about the play is that there is absolutely nothing noteworthy about it. References are made to the exact TV shows BYU students watch, the exact things they do, the exact things they say, the exact subjects that are a part of their culture. Most of the laughs come not because we have seen something unexpected or unusual, but precisely because it is NOT unexpected or unusual. It’s the “it’s funny because it’s true” method of comedy. Had a million other plays already been written on the same subject, this one wouldn’t be funny, because we’ve all made many of these jokes ourselves already. (What returned missionary HASN’T pretended to use the “Commitment Pattern” on someone in a non-missionary setting?) But since the play is new, we’re laughing because we can’t believe we’re seeing our lives played out on stage in the Pardoe Theatre.

Tanner plays Alex as typical as they come, as far as BYU males go. His part isn’t written with a great deal of depth — the play is not told through his point of view, after all — but I imagine he comes across exactly the way girls perceive guys as coming across (which frightens me a little, being a BYU guy myself). Morrill’s portrayal of Becca is also very accurate as she bemoans the latest moron she’s dating, insists she’s fat (which she isn’t), and expertly guides Joyce through her relationship with Alex. Her character is perhaps the most complex of the three, and Morrill pulls it off well.

And then there’s Joyce. Colleen Baum is nothing less than astounding in this role, particularly if you’ve seen her in anything else. Joyce is so realistic, like a thousand girls I know — and yet the real-life Baum is not much like them at all. This speaks volumes of Baum’s acting ability, throwing herself into a character that might normally come off as one-dimensional. With Baum playing her, Joyce is more than just “nice” or “kind” — she’s sensitive and delicate, optimistic about the future and yet pessimistic about the present. She’s naive, too — hopelessly naive — and so sympathetic that one can’t help but adore her and feel as devastated as she does when things don’t go well for her.

This is a great play, but not because it depicts BYU life so accurately. Simply showing something the way it is doesn’t automatically make it funny; showing it and then skewing it a little is what brings in the humor, and “Joyce Baking” does some of that skewing. (Though there are a few too many “Hey, look, it’s real life, so it must be funny!” kinds of jokes, particularly with the running gag about Alex’s priesthood lesson.) But even more importantly, this show demonstrates the side of BYU life that is not so easy to depict, and that is not so easy to think about. The side that often goes ignored: that dating is painful, and that good people get hurt.

Ultimately, for as funny and entertaining as this play is, it is also sad and upsetting. Every BYU student should see it and then re-evaluate how he or she is treating the opposite sex. There’s an important message here, and I hope people see it through all the laughter.

Why would you want to see “1776” — a musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence — when you already know how it’s going to end? Because of the three hours of powerhouse entertainment that lead up to that end, that’s why. (Perhaps, in this era of “Titanic,” that’s not really a fair question anyway.)

And while we know the Declaration of Independence eventually DID get signed, perhaps few of us know the struggles that came before it. “1776,” being performed at Pioneer Theatre Company through Oct. 3, depicts those struggles brilliantly: humorously, engagingly and excitingly. There actually IS tension and suspense as to whether the thing’s going to get signed or not!

“1776” is told through the eyes of John Adams (Kurt Ziskie), the fiery delegate from Massachusetts who seems never to rest, relax or shut up. He is a man obsessed with freeing the colonies from Britain, and he won’t rest until he has convinced every other delegate of the same thing.

His major opponent on the issue is stately John Dickinson (Max Robinson) of Pennsylvania, who still hopes for reconciliation with the mother country, despite the war that the colonies are currently fighting (and losing). The rest of the colonies are more or less evenly split, with Adams trying to win them over one by one.

On his side is Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin Stewart), who is portrayed here exactly as we like to think of him: wise, funny and old. He falls asleep during Congress meetings (who wouldn’t, really?), leers at pretty women, and is fond of quoting himself. Stewart’s performance is the easy-going balance to Ziskie’s tightly wound Adams.

“1776” is full of conflict. Aside from the ongoing war, which is only referred to and not seen, there’s Adams vs. Dickinson; the Southern colonies vs. Thomas Jefferson (played with dignity and strength by Patrick Boll); one Delaware delegate vs. another; Adams’ longing to be back home with his wife Abigail (Victoria Mallory) — and EVERYONE’S got problems with Jefferson’s proposed Declaration, wanting to take out a word here or put in a word there. (Anyone who has ever tried to write something via committee will relate to the agony and absurdity of that scene.)

Though “1776” is a musical, it is not a traditional one. There is no overture, no big finale with the entire cast singing and dancing, and in fact, there are only 13 songs in the entire show (20 or more is typical). Most of the songs are funny, reinforcing the show’s depiction of the delegates are real men: argumentative, hot and sweaty (“It’s hot as hell/ In Philadel-/ Phia,” sings one lyric), prone to making bawdy jokes, and stubborn. Yet the show manages to show us our forefathers in a way that makes them seem real without tearing down our lofty images of them. Adams is obnoxious and loud-mouthed, Jefferson can’t write until he sleeps with his wife one more time, Benjamin Franklin is lecherous and doddering — but we still love them. If anything, seeing a more realistic portrayal of them just makes us admire them more, because we see them as real people, not as 18th-century superheroes whose faces we know only from looking at our currency. Ultimately, every man follows his conscience and acts honorably — whether he signs the Declaration or not — and we gain new respect for the men who founded our country.

The show, while generally light in tone, has some serious moments, too. The news from the battle’s front is never good, and South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge (Robert Bartley) sings a slap-in-the-face of a song about slavery and the hypocrisy involved therein. And the long scenes of debate over the issues are fascinating. The costumes are so real and the acting so good that you feel you’re watching the real Congress. Through humor, music and powerful performances, “1776” shows the importance of standing up for one’s beliefs, the importance of fighting for a cause, and most importantly, the basis on which the United States of America was created. It may not actually be your patriotic duty to see this show, but it sure comes close.

If murdering vixens, devious lawyers and scantily clad prison gals all set to a scorching jazz soundtrack is your idea of a good time, then “Chicago” is just the musical for you.

Playing through Sunday at Salt Lake City’s Capitol Theatre, the national touring company of the Broadway hit is sultry, sexy, funny and filthy.

Set in the ’20s and based on a semi-true story, “Chicago” is about a couple of murderesses: Velma Kelly (Donna Marie Asbury), a vaudeville performer who killed her husband and sister after catching them, uh, together; and Roxie Hart, a would-be performer who killed her lover after he threatened to walk out on her. These are not particularly wholesome gals, nor are their fellow inmates in the Cook County Prison — but as they all sing their “Cell Block Tango” and tell of how they killed their various partners (“They had it comin'” is a recurring motif), we lighten up a bit and take this for what it is: very dark humor performed by very talented actresses. (One of them tells her story and ends with: “I took the shotgun off the wall and fired two warning shots — into his head.” Another mentions pouring her husband a drink, then says, “Some people just can’t hold their arsenic.” Laugh! It’s funny!)

Sleazy lawyer Billy Flynn (Brent Barrett) comes on the scene then. He has made Velma into the murderess-of-the-week, adored by the press, and the prison matron “Mama” (Avery Sommers) — who sings “When You’re Good to Mama” with as much soul and skill as any professional actress we’ve seen recently — has already arranged for Velma to hit the vaudeville circuit again, once she’s acquitted.

Unfortunately for Velma, new kid on the cell block Roxie starts to steal her thunder, and her publicity. Roxie tells more and more lies to win the public’s support, aided and abetted by Flynn. This leads to one of the most amazing scenes in the show: Roxie sits on Flynn’s lap and acts like a ventriloquist’s dummy — even mouthing the words — as Flynn sings to reporters. He is quite literally putting the words in her mouth, and not only is the scene very funny, it’s also stunningly choreographed.

“Chicago” is stylistic, not realistic. Set pieces consist usually of just a few chairs, and the bit parts are played by men and women dressed mostly in tight black outfits — one guy plays both a police officer and Roxie’s imaginary boy toy, all without changing outfits. People tend to slink and slither rather than walk, and even some of the dancing is choreographed to appear improvised — just like good jazz is.

Plot and characterization take a willing backseat to style, hot jazz music and incredible dancing, not to mention some solid physical comedy. The actresses are gleefully unashamed to fling themselves around in whatever manner is necessary in order to get a laugh, though they still seem very cool in doing it. In fact, that’s what makes much of the show so funny: the performers are so committed and professional that when one of them bends over backwards (literally) for a laugh, we can’t believe she’s actually doing something so absurd. We expect absurdity in our TV sitcoms and our high school farces — not in our slick, well-produced Broadway musicals.

But absurdity abounds, accompanied by skillful singing, dancing and merriment, making “Chicago” a thoroughly entertaining piece of work — a guilty pleasure, to be sure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

The main problem with “See How They Run” at the SCERA Shell Outdoor Theatre is the venue itself.

The Shell’s huge space is great for musicals and other large shows. It is not good, however, for small, one-room farces like “See How They Run.” The stage is simply too big. Everyone is too spread out. Instead of it taking a character three steps, for example, to run across the stage and slam a door, it takes six steps. The extra space throws off the timing, which throws off the pace, which throws off the humor.

The next big problem is the delivery. Many of the actors have adopted a flustered, stammering delivery on many of their lines, particularly as the situation within the play becomes more exasperating. This is the opposite of what farce usually needs, which is crisp, quick dialogue. You want “set-up”/”punch line,” not “set-up”/”uh-uh-uh, punch line.”

Some of the stammering may be attributed to being under-rehearsed on opening night. Much of it, however, seemed like intentional character choices.

The play, written by Phillip King and directed by Robinne Booth, is set in an English vicarage in the 1940s. Rev. Lionel Toop (Scott Healy) has a new wife, Penelope (Miriam Latour), a former actress who is not as demure as the townsfolk — particularly the prim Miss Skillon (Booth) — would like the vicar’s wife to be.

While Lionel is out one night, Penelope runs into an old friend, Clive (Doug Shattuck), now a soldier with a few hours to kill. They embark on a perfectly harmless night on the town, with Clive dressed in one of Lionel’s priest outfits to avoid being recognized as a soldier.

As you know if you have seen farces before, two men dressed in identical outfits will soon be mistaken for each other, even if they have completely different body types. (Also in farces: People can be knocked unconscious by a mere slap to the face.) Eventually, there are as many as four priest-dressed men running around the place, with a visiting bishop (Ben Wake), another vicar (Jeremy Showgren), an escaped Russian spy (Josh Curtis) and a nosy maid (Melissa A. Smith) thrown in the mix.

Miriam Latour, at the center of things as Penelope, starts out with a very natural, realistic performance. As the situation grows more bizarre, however, she becomes sillier and less believable. Still, this may be an improvement over most of the others, who start as over-acted caricatures and stay that way.

Instead of putting normal people into an outrageous situation, Booth has directed her cast to be outrageous people trapped in an outrageous situation. There is also a lot of unmotivated blocking — characters moving around as they speak without any discernible reason for it, other than to fill out that monstrous stage.

“See How They Run” can be an extremely funny play, but this production never reaches the level of mayhem it ought to.

Should you go? The laughs are few. SCERA’s outdoor season will surely get better.

“See How They Run,” the daft ’40s farce by Philip King, is well-directed and hilariously acted at the Springville Playhouse. Director James McGregor has the pacing just as it should be, and the cast has no weak links at all, with the leads showing particular skill.

Oh, and they’re all high school students.

It’s actually the Playhouse Youth Guild — a division of the Springville Playhouse — that has put this show together, but the participants’ talents outshine those of many of their adult counterparts.

It helps to have a good script, of course, and “See How They Run” has a great one. The dialogue is fast and clever, with characters snarking at each other constantly, and with a zillion comic possibilities. Everything takes place at a vicarage in England. The Rev. Lionel Toop (McGregor) has to put up with a nosy, prim-and-proper (yet inappropriately flirtatious, at least with him) parishioner, Miss Skillion (Natalie Llewellyn), as well as a wife, Penelope (Heidi Tippetts), who is a former actress and is anything but the demure and quiet preacher’s wife he’d like her to be.

Penelope, in fact, is the star of the show, and Tippetts plays her with fiery, gleeful abandon. Physically and vocally, Tippetts has energy, power and above all, comedic timing. She and Llewellyn — who is also talented far beyond her years — make a great duo, sparring over one another’s perceived inadequacies. (Llewellyn also plays a hilarious drunk later on in the play.)

While the Reverend is out for the evening, an old actor friend of Penelope’s stops by. It’s Clive (Jeff Croshaw), who is now in the army and has a one-night leave. They want to go see a production of the play they used to perform in, but it’s out of the city, and Clive can’t leave. The solution? Hide his military uniform in a trunk that “nobody ever looks in” (of course someone immediately does), and dress him up in one of the Reverend’s spare priest outfits.

When they return, all hell breaks loose as two — and eventually three, then four — men dressed as priests (some of them actually ARE priests) show up at the house, each being mistaken for someone else. Clive just wants to find his uniform — which the back-talking maid Ida (Eva Tippetts) has inadvertently misplaced — and get out, while Penelope is enraged at what looks to be an affair going on between the Reverend and Miss Skillion. Oh, and there’s an escaped Russian prisoner (Michael Johnson) involved as well (he’s also dressed like a priest, naturally).

Like any good farce, there’s plenty of physical comedy here, and it’s surprisingly fresh and non-sophomoric. People run in circles, jump over unconscious guests, punch each other in the face and do a lot of fainting — and they do it all like pros. (The punches in this show, of which there are several, are particularly good. They don’t look like fake “stage punches” — they look REAL. It may seem like a small thing, but working out the choreography of a good stage punch takes more than just a couple minutes of practice, and many shows just throw them in without paying attention to the details. This show goes above and beyond that.)

The play is hilarious from start to finish, with only a few lines delivered incorrectly, diminishing their humor. In the end, it doesn’t matter that Johnson doesn’t even ATTEMPT a Russian accent, or that there are two men each wearing clothes supposedly belonging to a man who is clearly not even close to the same size as they are. It doesn’t matter that Croshaw is often trying very hard not to laugh at himself. You forgive all this because 1) the show is so darn funny, and 2) the actors are clearly having the time of their lives. The enthusiasm and giddiness are contagious, and the show — entirely put together by high school students — is a rousing success.

There’s a scene in “Hamlet,” being performed through Sept. 19 as part of the Castle Theatre Festival, that epitomizes both the brilliance of the play, and the greatness of this production of it.

It’s the scene where Hamlet (David Morgan) has hired a troupe of actors to perform a play similar to what he believes to have been the circumstances surrounding his father’s death. Hamlet watches the play, as he watches Claudius (Chris Kendrick), looking for a twinge of recognition and guilt to cross the king’s face. Claudius stares at the play, unblinking and unflinching. Hamlet’s friend Horatio (Chris Clark), hiding in the shadows, also watches Claudius. They watch the play; they watch Claudius; Hamlet glances at Horatio; he watches the king some more.

Finally, when the play has hit too close to home, the king rises and leaves the room. Hamlet stops the play, everything is thrown into utter chaos, and for a few seconds he hurls himself into an insane revelry, giddy with mad delight at what has happened. The scene is intense, cathartic and brilliantly staged.

And so is the rest of the play. “Hamlet,” directed here by Loraine Edwards, is the most clear, lucid performance of a Shakespearean play that I have ever seen. The dialogue is still Elizabethan, but sometimes you forget that, so realistic and genuine are the actors in their delivery. They seem to understand what they’re saying, and what it means, and therefore so does the audience.

We see the characters’ reactions to each other, which helps us understand the nature of both parties. We see Hamlet’s grief over his father’s death, and his anger at his mother for marrying again so soon — and for marrying his father’s brother, at that. We see every emotion, passion and feeling that Shakespeare intended, all vividly and powerfully portrayed.

The show is just over three hours long, with one intermission. I honestly didn’t want the intermission, so caught up was I in everything that was unfolding before me. I knew the plot; I even knew some of the dialogue — and yet this performance seemed completely fresh and brand-new.

David Morgan is amazing as Hamlet. The character is extremely complex, but Morgan plays him completely realistically. He seems like… a guy. Just a guy that you might know, who has an extraordinary set of problems in his life. He saunters around the stage. He eats apples. He drinks. You wouldn’t know he’s one of the most famous characters in the whole history of English theater — because he just seems so real.

Trish Reading gives a marvelous performance as Ophelia, particularly in the scene in which she has gone insane. This scene can easily be overdone and melodramatic, but Reading plays it with grace and dignity — again, realism. And when her brother, Laertes (Jeremy Hoop), finds out that she has died, we see true heartbreak in his reaction.

Chris Clark, who is a sheer joy to watch in everything I’ve seen him do, adds a spark to Horatio, bringing him to life and giving him zest. Chris Kendrick is simultaneously noble and monstrous as Claudius, his great height and deep voice helping him make the villainous king a fascinating character to watch.

The climactic sword-fighting scene, choreographed by D.C. Wright, is stunning. Not only is the fighting well-done, but all the other commotion — various poisonings and stabbings and what-not — is perfectly timed and executed (pardon the pun), causing the play to end with the audience not only at the edge of their seats, but overwhelmed with the sheer sadness of it all, too.

One of the greatest tragedies about this play is that no one is seeing it! Audiences have been small for the first few performances. If you have ever considered seeing a Shakespeare production, see this one. If you haven’t considered seeing a Shakespeare production, change your mind and THEN see this one. It is not to be missed.

The Hale Center Theater Orem, once again defying the laws of physics, occasionally crams 24 very robust actors onto one tiny stage in the current production of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” It seems impossible, and yet director Syd Riggs and choreographer Brent Thomas Mills pull it off expertly, the stage never seeming cramped, despite the fact that, during one or two scenes, there are about 12 too many actors on it.

But that is not the only thing about “Seven Brides” that defies logic. In case you’ve never seen the play or the movie, it’s about a family of seven two-fisted fur trappers — brothers who brawl, argue, wrestle and just generally raise a ruckus as they try to make a living in the frontiers of the Wild West. The eldest, Adam (Erik Christensen), decides to go into town and bag himself a wife, which he handily does, in the form of the intelligent and feisty Milly (Jenn Webb). Why does a girl like her agree to go off and marry a sexist pig like him after only one meeting? Good question.

Even better questions emerge later, though, when the six remaining brothers, whom Milly promptly turns into civilized human beings (much to Adam’s chagrin), decide they want wives, too. They all go to a barn raising and win the hearts of six girls in town, wooing them away from their current beaus. How do they do this? By dancing, apparently. (The Wild West was evidently very different from the way we often think of it.)

Ultimately, Adam convinces his brothers the best way to get the girls to marry them is to abduct them from their homes, drag them back to the family farm in the woods, and cause an avalanche behind them so the townspeople can’t come rescue their daughters until spring. How could he possibly think that’s a good idea? Good question. Also, how could his brothers possibly go along with it? Another good question.

The title of the play indicates what eventually happens, of course, but everything in between is nonsensical — at least when summarized on paper. Somehow, when it’s performed onstage — and performed with the talent, enthusiasm and conviction displayed in this production — it all makes sense. You almost don’t notice the absurdity of six guys running around the stage with girls slung over their shoulders like bales of hay.

This show has several really great scenes. When Milly teaches the six brothers about etiquette and “Goin’ Courtin’,” the whole group dances around the kitchen table like there’s no tomorrow. And in the barn-raising scene, where the brothers try to win the hearts of the girls, the dancing is occasionally a bit off, but it’s still charming in its klunkiness. Even better is the ensuing brawl, which is as carefully choreographed as anything you’ll see, but with the feel of absolute reckless abandon.

It’s that kind of sheer joy and enthusiasm that makes “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” work. Jason Garfield, Robert Land, Derek Call, C. Mo. Hanners, Trent Sutton and Justin Martin all give great performances as the brothers; Emilee Wager, Tara Paige Starling, Andrea Chapman, Becky Witham, Kris Wing and Katie Higbee aren’t given much chance to develop characters as the brides, but they are united in the giggly glee that pervades much of their stage time.

Worthy of particular mention are Jenn Webb as the headstrong Milly. Webb is small and pretty in frame, but energetic and fiery in her performance. She and Erik Christensen, as Adam, both have beautiful singing voices, carrying many of the musical numbers. Also, Justin Martin’s turn as youngest brother Gideon — the only one besides Adam whom the script provides with a personality — is funny and endearing.

The show is fun, fast-paced, sometimes raucous, sometimes sweet, always entertaining. The Hale Center Theater, and Syd Riggs, do it again.

So pretty much what’s happening is, some people who are vaguely implied to be extra-terrestrials are disguising themselves as Nazis, and then as regular people, in order to get hold of a crystal that a high school science club discovered which, unbeknownst to the science people, is capable of destroying the world, which of course is what the aliens want it for.

Oh, sorry. I was going to do a regular lead, but I figured a plot summary, in this case, would get your attention better. It’s the musical/parody/melodrama currently being performed at Desert Star Playhouse in Murray, and it’s called “Scooter Wells, Boy Detective, and the Secret of Scull Cove.”

This Desert Star production is less of a parody and more of a goofy little story about an all-American high school boy named Scooter (R. Russell Durrant), his all-American cheerleader girlfriend Penny (Ginger Christensen), their obligatory nerd friend Bunky (Christopher Joseph Rogers), their obligatory rich-snob rivals Sylvia and Preston (Kaycee Raquel and Paul Thomas Murphy), and the obligatory aliens-posing-as-Nazis (Norman E. Plate and Layna Carter).

This production is also a little more self-aware than it should be. The dialogue is full of terrible puns and cheesy jokes, which are what we gleefully expect at the Desert Star. But these are a little worse than usual, and most of them are punctuated with pianist Anne Puzey doing a little trill on the piano — as if to say, “Wasn’t that funny? Eh? Eh?” This wink-wink, nudge-nudge approach merely points out that the jokes aren’t that great, and reminds you that they actually expected you to laugh.

The play improves greatly in the second act, though, when the plot swings into full motion and the show quits reminding you that it’s supposed to be funny. There are some truly funny moments, centered mostly around the big, intentionally silly set pieces. Scooter and Bunky go underwater at one point; there’s a car chase with pieces of scenery being dragged across the stage with strings; and a boat chase with a similar approach. In these scenes, the show is every bit as cheesy as it was before. The difference is that now, it doesn’t beat you over the head with its cheesiness; it just lets you sit back and enjoy it.

Another highlight is Rogers’ scene as “Mr. Molecule,” Bunky’s Freudally repressed alter ego. His costume alone is hysterical, but his song and dance make things all the more bizarre. It’s the sort of inspired lunacy we see when the Desert Star is at its finest.

This show also contains what may be the last GOOD joke about Dennis Rodman before all Dennis Rodman jokes become passe.

The cast is talented and energetic — sometimes almost painfully so, when you realize they’ve just put all their emotion into the worst joke you’ve ever heard. But they keep the show moving at a fast clip, never letting up for a second.

“Scooter Wells” isn’t the best show Desert Star has produced. But as usual, it’s family-friendly, allows for audience participation, and is an amusing diversion for a couple hours or so.

The latest ambitious project at the SCERA Shell Outdoor Theatre is the stage version of “Singin’ in the Rain,” a show full of singing, dancing, romancing, and goofing around.

The cast at SCERA has big shoes to fill. “Singin’ in the Rain” is widely regarded as one of the best movie musicals of all time, and the film starred Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds — who can live up to any of that?

And yet some of these SCERA performers step right up to the plate and knock one out of the park. Jason Webb, one of the best actors in the valley, takes the Gene Kelly role as Don Lockwood, a silent-movie icon who is supposed to be in love with his co-star, but who actually loves another actress. That actress, Kathy Selden, is played by Melia Erdmann.

Webb and Erdmann have excellent, gorgeous singing voices, and Webb even looks a little like Gene Kelly, especially when he grins, which is usually. Both come across as so likable and genuine, it’s easy to be caught up in their Hollywood love story.

Playing Lockwood’s best friend Cosmo Brown is Jaelan Petrie. Petrie might have the toughest job here: performing the famous “Make ’em Laugh” slapstick sequence originally done so brilliantly by Donald O’Connor. Petrie doesn’t even try to run up the walls like O’Connor did, nor does he try to imitate O’Connor in too many other ways. Instead, he makes the part his own with some truly impressive pratfalls, gymnastics and acrobatic, energetic goofiness. Petrie breathes life into a show that occasionally drags a little.

Also worthy of mention is Jolene Sayers as Lina Lamont, Lockwood’s on-screen love interest who would like to be his off-screen lover too. The joke here — in fact, the basic joke of the whole show — is that Lamont LOOKS great, but has a terrible voice. This doesn’t matter in the Roaring ’20s, when movies don’t talk — but once sound comes in, it becomes a huge problem. Her adoring fans have never heard her speak before, and the studio knows that when they do, they’ll be wanting their money back.

Sayers is terribly funny as Lamont, particularly in the scene where a “talkie” is first attempted. Her intentional lack of dignity makes the character all the more annoying and stupid, and she’s a joy to watch.

Director Syd Riggs — who also did last summer’s major production of “Crazy for You” — achieves almost the same greatness with “Singin’ in the Rain.” There’s some great dancing from the ensemble, and of course good singing. Some pretty solid laughs, too. If there is a flaw with this show, it’s one that’s inherent in the script: Some of the songs range from being merely unmemorable to being downright lame. “Singin’ in the Rain” is a classic, of course, and “Make ’em Laugh” and “Moses Supposes” will stick with you. But beyond that, it’s only been 24 hours, and I can’t recall a single melody from any of the other songs (“You Are My Lucky Star,” “You Were Meant for Me,” etc.). The cast members sing them well enough; they’re just not very good songs, more generic than meaningful. (“Good Morning” is memorable, but only because the tune is maddeningly, irritatingly catchy. In fact, it won’t leave my brain, and I may claw my face off.)

But aside from that, “Singin’ in the Rain” is a gloriously entertaining, fun show. Don’t miss your chance to see community theater at its best.

“Kiss and Tell,” the World War II-era comedy currently being performed at Hale Center Theater Orem, produces some of the biggest belly laughs I’ve had in a long time. And I watch a LOT of comedy.

Despite the title, this is no romantic comedy. Love and romance are certainly addressed, but it’s more of a domestic farce about petty personal disputes and the effects of rumors and gossip.

We meet Corliss Archer (Claire Wilkins), a 15-year-old girl who wants nothing more than to be older. When a soldier on leave (John Preator) drops by to visit, she is enamored with him, though once her parents tell him her age, any chance of true, serious romance is squashed.

Meanwhile, Corliss’ best friend Mildred Pringle (Kathy Wahlquist) is in love with Corliss’ brother, Lenny (Neal Gage), who is currently off to war. When he comes back for a 72-hour leave, they hurry up and elope before he is shipped off again.

Why elope? Well, the Archers and the Pringles are in the midst of a suburban feud — over something stupid, to be sure, and fueled by gossip, which plays a MAJOR part in this show — and there’s no way either set of parents would stand for it. The kids are all more level-headed, and they get along fine, but there’s no reasoning with the grown-ups.

The problems — and the aforementioned belly laughs — come when Mildred, now an adoring wife waiting for her husband to return, discovers she is pregnant. Since no one except Corliss even knows she’s married, she can’t very well announce that she’s pregnant (not in the 1940s, anyway). This leads to some hasty conclusions being jumped to by all the characters, and some top-notch acting on the part of everyone involved.

(Bear in mind that Hale Center uses two different casts. There’s one group Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and another Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I saw it on a Saturday — but some of the M/W/F actors were filling in for their Tu/Th/S counterparts. So your actors may vary.)

It’s rare (and, indeed, dangerous) to have young people lead your show, but Claire Wilkins carries the play remarkably well as the head-strong, energetic Corliss. Assisting her with confidence and true comedic talent is Jeff Whitlock as neighbor and sort-of boyfriend Dexter Franklin. Whitlock is funny throughout the show, but in the scene when everything hits the fan, he shows a flair for frenetic comedy that is far beyond his years, beginning with a perfectly timed entrance. (His entrance alone is worth the price of admission. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.)

Also a stand-out is John Paulk as Corliss’ dad. His first few scenes have him making wry, amusing comments — sort of a laid-back casual dad. But when things get frantic, he blusters and blows with the best of them, demonstrating a good range of skill.

Nancy Douglas as Mrs. Archer, Joshua Freeman as a precocious Pringle youth, and Neal Gage as Lenny Archer all shine in their roles. Gage, though playing a minor character without much funny stuff to do, adds some real class to the show with a sincere performance that contributes one more layer to the already multi-textured show.

In short, this is an ensemble cast full of funny characters, thrust into well-crafted comic situations and reacting to them with gusto, energy and humor. Don’t miss this one.

Since it’s summertime, the BYU Theater Department has decided to let some of the kids go nuts and slap together their own show — a wise decision, given the caliber of the students involved and the quality of the finished product.

“Black Comedy” and “The Private Ear” are one-act plays set in mid-60s London and written by Peter Shaffer. Directors Chris Bentley and Adam Boulter obviously intended for the the two plays to fit well together, given their common author and setting; unfortunately, they have little else in common — “Black Comedy” is a farce; “Private Ear” is a poignant comedy/drama — and the difference winds up making the very good individual parts not add up to much of a whole.

The evening begins auspiciously. The Margetts Theatre is decked out in mid-60s paraphernalia, including several vintage couches placed throughout the audience where some of the chairs should be. Before the show officially begins, Jjana Valentiner Morrill performs a Christopher Durang monologue called “Mrs. Sorken,” in which the title character gives a perfectly daft and absurd history of drama and theater. Morrill is a kitschy delight in her time onstage, making it well worth getting to the theater 10 minutes early to see her.

Then comes “Black Comedy.” It begins with starving artist Brindsley Miller (Tom Hindmarsh) and his girlfriend Carol Melkett (Melissa Yacktman) in his apartment, discussing what is to take place that night: Not only is her strict military father (Javen Ronald Tanner) supposed to come visit so that Brindsley can ask for Carol’s hand in marriage, but millionaire Georg Bamberger (Matthew J. Morrill) is also supposed to show up and hopefully buy some of Brindsley’s art. Brindsley is poor, though, and doesn’t want his visitors to know it, so he has borrowed the elegant furniture of his neighbor, Harold Gorringe (Peter Brown), who is out of town and would be furious if he knew Brindsley had taken his stuff.

The play is already setting up some marvelous comic possibilities, but there’s also something else: The entire time Brindsley and Carol have been discussing this, the stage has been in total darkness. To them, however, the apartment is lit normally. Then, there’s a power outage in Brindsley’s apartment building. The stage lights come on, allowing the audience to finally see them — but to the characters, they’re now in darkness. The rest of the play is done that way, with the characters moving around as though in the dark, nearly bumping into each other, talking about people whom they think aren’t there, and getting away with things they couldn’t get away with if the other characters could see them.

The light/dark flip-flop is a brilliant gimmick, and it works beautifully. Some bits are choreographed masterfully, especially when Harold returns unexpectedly and Brindsley tries to move the furniture back to his apartment without him knowing it. Drinks are passed, chairs are lifted, and people move around, all barely missing each other and unaware of their close encounters.

Hindmarsh is excellent as the exasperated and frantic Brindsley, making the most of a physically demanding role. Other standouts in this ensemble of wackos include Emmelyn Thayer as Miss Furnival, a neighbor lady who, in the dark, decides to give up her “no-drinking” policy, culminating in a crazed, delusional monologue delivered atop a coffee table; and Joel R. Wallin as the German electrician with a maniacal laugh. Peter Brown is also particularly good as the outrageously gay and prissy Harold Gorringe.

“Black Comedy” is a busy, silly play, with a lot of activity and plenty of blink-and-you-miss-it bits of comedy. It is gleefully devoid of any depth whatsoever, and it revels giddily in its mindlessness.

After intermission, one might expect “The Private Ear” to be something similar, and in fact, it begins that way. Aaron Johnston plays a fellow named Tchaik (short for Tchaikovsky), and he’s nervously trying to get ready for a date that evening. Seems a woman he met at a classical music concert is coming over for dinner, and he’s terrified. His first few moments of frantically trying to iron his pants and get dressed hint at more of the lunacy we saw in “Black Comedy.”

This is not to be, however. “The Private Ear” turns out to be much quieter — a little too quiet, in fact, particularly in Javen Ronald Tanner’s performance as Tchaik’s friend Ted (perhaps Tanner is just tired from having yelled throughout much of “Black Comedy”). “Private Ear” suffers from a bit of a malaise, as much of the first 10 minutes are rather low-key and slow.

Tchaik has invited Ted to have dinner there, too, because Ted is a swinger and can show Tchaik how to behave in front of the lady. Unfortunately, Ted is a bit TOO smooth, and Tchaik is a bit too stuffy, and the woman (Emmelyn Thayer) winds up falling more for Ted.

The exact situation easily could be played for laughs, but it was not written that way. Instead, we see two very different characters, Ted and Tchaik, both of whom are at fault. Ted is too much of a bachelor, and Tchaik is too nerdy. But Johnston plays Tchaik as being so sweetly, endearingly, charmingly uncool that he easily wins over the audience.

“The Private Ear” has funny moments, particularly involving the opera records Tchaik forces his date to listen to, but it is overall a drama, and a rather sad one at that. All three actors turn in fine performances. The only problem is its forced connection with its polar opposite, “Black Comedy.”

Go see this show bearing in mind that you’re going to see two completely different plays. Both are excellent — one has an ensemble cast that has no weak link and is hysterically funny; the other is dramatic and heart-felt, with emotions attached to it — and together, they make for an evening of solid theater.

Any theater attempting to do Shakespeare has its work cut out for it. His language is foreign-sounding to the modern ear, and it takes real skill to deliver the lines in a way that sounds both honest and intelligible.

Plus, if you happen to be doing “Comedy of Errors,” as the SCERA Shell Outdoor Theatre currently is, the script is confusing as heck anyway, dealing as it does with two sets of identical twins, with each member of each set having the same name as his brother.

(Was that common then? Having twins and giving them both the same name? Wasn’t it confusing enough to have them LOOK alike? Did audiences in Shakespeare’s day roll their eyes, too, and say, “What kind of parents would do that to their sons?”? Just wondering.)

The plot: There’s a guy named Antipholus (Randy Honaker) who has become quite a well respected fellow in Ephesus, and who is never far from his personal servant, Dromio (Verdon Walker, Jr.). Along comes Antipholus’ long-lost twin brother — also named Antipholus (John Lundwall) — from Syracuse, with HIS personal servant, who is Dromio’s long-lost twin, and who is ALSO named Dromio (Thane Bingham). Only none of the four knows that they even HAVE long-lost twins, and, thanks to the wacky nature of farce comedy, they’re never in the same spot at the same time, so they never see each other and notice the resemblance.

Various people keep seeing one of the Antipholuses and mistaking him for the other, and soon even the servants are addressing the wrong men as their masters, and vice versa. It’s all extremely wacky, in a dignified, Shakespearean kind of way.

And that may be a problem. For try as it might to be truly zany and farcical, the SCERA production still seems eminently Shakespearean, with a touch of the Three Stooges forced in here and there.

SCERA’s production of “Comedy of Errors” is a mixed bag. It’s confusing, to be sure — that Shakespearean dialogue, coupled with the identity crises — but also fairly amusing in some parts. Often, you can identify the parts that are funny, but it takes so long to process what they’re saying that by the time you translate it, you forget to laugh.

Perhaps it can be blamed on the fact that it was opening night, but the audience I was in only laughed about a dozen times during the entire show. We were amused, and mostly entertained, but there wasn’t always much to make us laugh out loud.

(Two exceptions, without giving too much away: hand-held signs announcing who the twins are — the actors don’t actually look alike, you see — and an inspired bit of slapstick involving two apples.)

Shakespeare fans will probably enjoy this production, light-hearted as it is. But its fairly slow pacing and obtuse dialogue probably won’t convert any non-fans.

Whatever you’ve heard about Salt Lake Acting Company’s infamous “Saturday’s Voyeur,” it’s probably true.

Offensive and sacrilegious? Sure. Crude, gross, sexual and sophomoric? Oh, yeah.

Riotously, painfully, hysterically funny? Most definitely.

This year’s production — the “Titanic Technicolor 20th Anniversary Cruise,” as it is described — mocks in song and dance nearly every Utah news story of the past year, as well as the dalliances of a certain U.S. President, not to mention the crimes of a sperm-bank doctor from several years ago.

The show is mostly a parody of that ubiquitous Utah phenomenon “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Most of the music is from that show, with parody lyrics by “Voyeur” writers/directors Nancy Borgenicht and Allen Nevins. The plot follows Andrew Boyd Packer (a play on “Joseph” composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and of course also on LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer), a Native American BYU student who is also gay. Andrew (Aaron Swenson) is resented by his fellow Young Ambassadors, who feel he is unworthy to be at BYU, so they lock him in the basement with all the banned Rodin sculptures, telling BYU President Merrill J. Bateman (Christopher Lazzaro) that Andrew has moved to Salt Lake to live the gay lifestyle (“There’s one less homo in Orem,” they sing, to the tune of “Joseph’s” “There’s One More Angel in Heaven”).

Eventually, Andrew is rescued and comes to the aid of U of U coach Rick Majerus (played brilliantly by Spencer Ashby), who has had some troubling dreams of late. He becomes Rick’s right-hand man, and when the Young Ambassadors find themselves in a slump, they come to Andrew (not recognizing him, of course) for advice.

Everything wraps up nicely, with gays, short skirts and various other forbidden things now being allowed at BYU.

Offended already? Then don’t go.

The subject of homosexuality is discussed abundantly in this show. Wendy Weaver (Marilyn Alldredge), the Spanish Fork volleyball coach who was fired for being a lesbian, is featured, along with her partner (Elizabeth Whitney). In one of the cleverer moments, Joseph’s multi-colored coat is compared to the gay flag and its rainbow of colors (and now that you mention it, they DO look alike…).

There’s plenty of straight sex, too, though, with Bill Clinton (Lazzaro again), Monica Lewinsky (Carolyn Stone) and the hideous Linda Tripp (Michael Boswell) acting out their story in the basement where Andrew is trapped.

A couple of popular characters from previous “Voyeur” shows make return appearances, those being Joe Waldholtz (Kenneth Wayne) and Dr. Cecil Jacobsen (Ashby again). Jacobsen, if you don’t recall, was convicted several years ago of using his own sperm to impregnate women when he worked at a fertility clinic. His song, to the tune of “Gaston” from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” is probably the best-written song in the show — the words rhyme, it’s funny, it’s satirical — but it’s also by far the crudest, grossest part of the evening.

One could easily argue that the character shouldn’t even BE there, since he was in the news in the early ’90s and has been largely forgotten by now. In fact, I will argue that: This character shouldn’t be in the show.

“Saturday’s Voyeur” does not satirize Utah culture so much as it tosses it in a blender and then spits it out all over the audience — and I mean that as a compliment. Where true satire holds up something that is ironic or odd or just shouldn’t be, and then points out what’s wrong with it, “Voyeur” merely holds it up and shoots at it.

For example, just mentioning the nude Rodin sculptures that were banned from BYU is not satire, even if the opinion is expressed that the ban was silly. If they had pointed out the irony inherent in the fact that 90 percent of BYU students, while unable to see those nude sculptures, saw much more nudity than that, in living color, when they all went to see “Titanic” — well, THAT would be satire.

So “Saturday’s Voyeur” is more carefully orchestrated anarchy than it is satire, an iconoclastic punch in the mouth of Utah culture with something to offend nearly everyone. The fact that there is little in the way of a “point” or a “message” should be of comfort, though, for it reminds us that this is all in fun, and no harm is intended. Even though the show ends with anything and everything being permitted at BYU, one can hardly take that as being what the show REALLY thinks will or should happen; it’s just sort of a silliest-case scenario.

The cast is largely an ensemble, with most actors playing multiple roles, and no weak links in the cast. A few stand-outs are Alexis Baigue, who plays Rick Majerus’s ball boy, among other roles; Natalie Banks, who is perfect as the Rose look-alike in the opening “Titanic” parody; and Kori Hazel, who carries things along well as the Narrator.

While the Desert Star Playhouse usually presents melodramatic musical parodies where the broad, vaudeville-esque jokes are used to whack you in the face, the current production, “Calamity Jane: All’s Riot on the Western Front” focuses less on comedy and more on music and light-hearted fun.

One could criticize the show for simply not being very funny, but that would be unfair. When it tries to be funny, it is; it just doesn’t always try, choosing instead to tell an entertaining, amusing little story about the Old West.

The new Pony Express rider is Calamity Jane (Julie Ann Christensen), a rough-and-tumble frontier gal who is also a sharpshooter and who doesn’t put up with any garbage from anyone. (She also has a beautiful singing voice, by the way, which perhaps contradicts her tomboy-ish nature, but I guess that’s how musicals are, eh?) She comes in to the town of Deadwood and runs into her old flame, Wild Bill Hickock (Scott Holman), who unfortunately at this point is somewhat enamored with western fiction writer Ambrosia Hepsibah (Lynda Robyns).

Meanwhile, the local bad guy, Diamond Jack Butler (Dallas Forester) is scheming with the haggish Cimmaron Rose (Danielle Omer) and the dim-witted Grizzly Bear Gibbons (Christopher Joseph Rogers) to steal the gold mine belonging to the goofy Irish guy Paddy O’Leary (Paul Luscher).

Naturally, Jane and Bill wind up together, and they foil the plans of the bad guys, with help from the sissy-turned-tough-guy bartender Elmo (Christian M. Dives, and yes, there’s a “Tickle Me Elmo” joke). And they all live happily ever after.

While this is more of a fun Old West story than a comedy, there certainly are some very funny moments. At one point Wild Bill dons braids and a hat to do a Willie Nelson impression, and everytime Grizzly Bear Gibbons comes onstage, pianist David Len Allen plays “Bare Necessities” from Disney’s “The Jungle Book” — one of several subtle jokes provided by the pianist as he sort of narrates the show with his mood music and sound effects. (When they go down into the dangerous mine, he plays “Clementine” in a minor key — very funny, if you catch it.)

The chase scene in the mine, with two box cars supposedly chasing each other (it’s actually just one, and the characters keep quickly trading places) is also frenetic and wacky.

Following the show is the “Take Me out to the Ball Game Olio,” full of singing, dancing and shtick about sports. Here we find some of the smartest satire the Desert Star has done, in their song about returned missionaries at BYU, and the co-eds who just want to get married. It’s an old, tired subject, but the cast manages to infuse some new life into it with some creative lyrics.

Another highlight of the Olio: The five men do a cross-dressing impression of the Utah Jazz dancers. Men in drag are not automatically funny, but in this case it works.

Christian Dives, who is one of the better performers in his “Calamity Jane” role as Elmo, is unfortunately one-half of an atrocious performance of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” His partner in this travesty is Christopher Rogers, who also was good as Grizzly Bear Gibbons, but who doesn’t even come close to measuring up to Bud Costello. Certain things are classics, gems, brilliant diamonds shining brightly in the annals of comedy, and they should not be performed by anyone other than their originators. In this case, it makes two otherwise fine actors look very, very bad, because they’re not nearly as good as their material.

Omega Productions’ 25th anniversary revival of “Saturday’s Warrior,” currently playing at Salt Lake’s Capitol Theatre in preparation for an eight-city tour, is better than it could have been.

The LDS musical has taken a lot of abuse for the last quarter-century, some of it well-deserved, for being cheesy, trite, and full of doctrine that ranges from the merely hypothetical to the downright incorrect. (Pam dies and goes BACK to the pre-existence, where the as-yet unborn Emily still waits? I don’t think so.)

This image has not been helped by the video production released a decade or so ago which has become commonplace in many LDS homes and which is horribly overacted, accentuating every minor flaw in Doug Stewart’s script and lyrics and adding plenty more of its own.

The new production overcomes many of the obstacles that face it, thanks to some minor changes in the script and a major overhaul of Lex de Azevedo’s original musical arrangements, re-done quite well by Clive Romney.

Some solid acting, good choreography (by Kieri Coombs) and able direction (by Robert Manning) also contribute.

The show begins in the pre-mortal world (they called it the “pre-existence” in 1973), where several spirits are waiting to be born. In particular there is a family of eight, the oldest two of whom — twins Jimmy (Casey Reeves) and Pam (Kiri Price) Flinders — are about to enter this world. Also going is Todd (Mark Daniels), who has already proclaimed his love for Julie Flinders (Ashley Jepperson). And there are a couple of guys, Wally (Brian McFadyn) and Harold (Matthew Lewis), who are destined to be missionary companions 20 years down the road.

This long scene unfortunately resembles the aforementioned video in terms of embarrassing cuteness. In fact, it seems some of the actors studied that video carefully to learn how they should say their lines — a bad idea, to be sure. Some of the dialogue is cringe-worthy as written, but could be salvaged if delivered with some down-to-earth sincerity.

But there is none of that in the opening sequence, which is instead full of broad, obnoxious choreography, jokes that are swung around like sledgehammers, and some real ham-fisted directing.

Fortunately, the show makes a 180-degree turn with “Sailing On.” That number exemplifies what is good about this production, and how the rest of the show should have been, in that it is simple and understated. Jimmy and Pam sing while a few dancers move elegantly in the background. Throughout the show, when things are kept simple like that, there is much feeling, much emotion, and much humor. It is only when they try to make things “big” that they instead make things melodramatic and embarrassing.

McFadyn and Lewis as the two missionaries demonstrate some of the best chemistry — as well as some of the best singing ability — playing off each other with skill and creating genuine laughs — again, because they don’t try too hard to force the laugh out of us. McFadyn, particularly, is energetic and full of life in everything he does.

Reeves is solid as Jimmy, singing well and conveying his inner struggle as well as is possible, given the vagueness of the script in that department. Some work could be done to make him seem more sympathetic to the audience, as opposed to being somewhat non-descript, as he is now.

Surprisingly helpful in a supporting role is Fred Lee as younger brother Benjy. While many young actors, including some in this show, feel a need to yell every line with a self-aware “this-is-funny” attitude, Lee is honest and real in his performance. This young actor will do a killer job at lead roles when he gets a little older.

Jepperson plays the fickle “Dear John”-writer Julie with a whininess that is at first annoying, until you realize she’s doing it on purpose, at which point it becomes quite funny.

In the end, “Saturday’s Warrior” really is touching and inspiring. Theatrically, several scenes have flaws, and those do detract from the spirit that could otherwise be felt. (It’s hard to cringe at the ridiculousness of something and be inspired by it at the same time.) But ultimately, those flaws can be overlooked as the important message of the show and its uplifting spirit are conveyed by a cast that obviously puts its heart and soul into everything.

Provo Theatre Company’s production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” is one of about 1,000 such productions happening in Utah this year, so they want it to be different.

“Different?” you say. “How can you make ‘Joseph’ different?” Indeed, it’s not like the show has a tremendous amount of character depth or serious themes that one production can draw out more than another. What are they going to do, focus on the internal struggles of Isaachar? Help the audience see the true feelings of Gad?

What PTC has done is turn “Joseph” into a sort of pop-culture free-for-all, with jokes and joke-like bits strewn throughout the show. Joseph brags that his coat is from fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger; the Ishmaelites are dressed as I-15 construction workers; when Pharaoh is referred to as being “right-wing,” a picture of Rush Limbaugh is held up; when the brothers come to beg for food, Joseph says, a la “Seinfeld,” “No soup for you!” Oh, and there’s a “Titanic” reference. (Of COURSE there’s a “Titanic” reference. How could there not be?)

These modifications are unlikely to upset anyone. “Joseph” already takes some serious liberties with the Bible story it’s based on; so why not take liberties with “Joseph”? Composer and lyricist Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice intended for it to be a fun, zany show, and PTC director Charles Lynn Frost is merely taking that philosophy and updating it.

There are also some modern-day characters thrown in for extra laughs. In some cases, this works; in others, it doesn’t.

A case where it is genuinely funny is when the back-up singers come on dressed like the Spice Girls. At first this addition seems superfluous, until a few lines from a Spice Girls song are thrown in, blending in perfectly with the existing musical score. It winds up being funny simply because they don’t make a big issue of it. The show lets us be amused by it without hitting us over the head and saying, “Hey, look! It’s the Spice Girls! Isn’t that funny?!”

The other additional characters don’t work precisely because we ARE hit over the head with them. The Butler, in jail with Joseph, is played like Austin Powers, from last year’s hit film “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.” This is an entirely irrelevant, Road Show-esque change. I imagine Troy Williams, who plays the Butler in this show, began doing his Austin Powers impression at a rehearsal, and Frost told him to play the Butler that way — never mind that his Austin Powers impression isn’t even very GOOD.

The other one is the Baker, also imprisoned with Joseph. Now the Baker is a woman — specifically, Linda Richman, from the “Coffee Talk” sketches on “Saturday Night Live” six years ago. Brice Hawks does a good enough job impersonating this character — but it’s not his character. It was Mike Myers’ character on “SNL” (come to think of it, Austin Powers was played by Mike Myers, too — what’s going on here?), and it was funny when HE did it. Having Hawks play the Baker as Linda Richman is, again, superfluous and not really funny. We’ve heard the “I’m getting verklempt” jokes before. On “SNL.” Six years ago.

Cory Bench is appropriately handsome, tan and toothy as Joseph, and he has a singing voice that is strong, even, and carries the show well.

Even better is the Narrator, played by Lisa Weight, who belts out everything she sings with gusto and finesse. Being detached from the goofiness of the action, Weight plays the Narrator with a great deal of class and dignity.

Other principals include Marc Haddock as a robust Jacob (a refreshing change from the bearded-and-old Jacobs we usually see), and Stephen Briggs as the Elvis-like Pharaoh.

The brothers are all played with energy and vigor, many of them excellent singers and dancers, and the cast does its best to dance around on that tiny PTC stage. Sometimes the choreography is awkward because of the limited space, but there are other times when it works well and is indeed impressive.

The whole show is kind of like that, in fact. Some things work really well and are inventive and funny — Joseph and Mrs. Potiphar’s strobe-light chase scene is original, as is having Joseph read books like “Prison for Dummies” and “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Jailbirds” while in jail — and other things just don’t work at all.

It seems that in an attempt to be something other than your run-of-the-mill production of “Joseph,” this one goes a bit overboard, adding more things and making more changes than are really necessary. (Like why is “Those Canaan Days” played as Jewish instead of French? It’s not any funnier that way — just different.)

Provo Theatre Company’s shows are always excellent, and this one is only slightly below the theater’s reputation. It’s meant to be a crowd-pleaser, and the opening night crowd was certainly pleased, so in that regard it fulfills its mission.

“The Rainmaker,” written by N. Richard Nash, is a warm play about self-esteem, beauty and love, all symbolized by a drought and the promise of rain.

At the Hale Center Theater Orem, the presentation of this play is endearing and sweet, driving home most, if not all, of the things the script has to say.

At the center of the plot is Lizzie Curry, a young gal whose father and brothers want to see her married. You see, it’s the ’20s (or thereabouts; we’re not told, exactly), and getting married is what girls have to do if they want to be happy. Lizzie certainly wants to get married, but she considers herself plain and unappealing. Furthermore, she’s highly intelligent, and she refuses to stoop to flirting and cooing like the other girls do to get their men.

The town deputy, File, has a sort of nebulous fondness for Lizzie, and she for him, though it is mostly unspoken, and in fact woefully undeveloped in this production. We are merely TOLD that they may have feelings for each other, but it is not adequately demonstrated. (File’s character by himself goes pretty much undeveloped too, for that matter.)

And in the midst of all this, there’s a drought. Crops are dying, and so are the animals, and the Curry farm is in trouble. Along comes Starbuck, an allegedly charismatic man — again we’re TOLD he’s charismatic, though Gordy Villarini’s portrayal of him doesn’t really exude charisma; it’s more like watered-down superhero-like charm. Anyway, Starbuck pops in and announces that for $100, he can make it rain. He’s a con man, of course, but Lizzie’s father, H.C., and her little brother Jimmy decide to give him a chance.

Foolishness, you say? Not exactly. The whole idea here, as we soon learn when Starbuck takes a liking to Lizzie, is that everyone has to have a dream. Miracles don’t happen very often, but sometimes, you have to count on them to occur when necessary. Starbuck has always wanted to make it rain, but he’s never done it. The family wants it to rain, but there’s not much they can do about it. Lizzie wants a man to love her, and to settle down to a simple home life with a family of her own, but she’s convinced it will never happen to her.

Everyone has dreams, and what’s at issue here is whether those dreams are realistic. Noah, the sensible brother, played with power by Larson Holyoak, says everyone’s dreams are bunk: Starbuck can’t make it rain, Jimmy shouldn’t go chasing the town floozy, and Lizzie’s going to wind up an old maid. He calls it being realistic, and maybe it is. But, as Starbuck says, “You gotta take a chance. Relax, and let miracles happen.” In other words, sometimes you have to forget about being realistic and just start dreaming.

The drought is a metaphor for Lizzie’s desire for true love. During her first night back from a trip that was supposed to yield her a husband, she dreams of rain, not realizing that what she’s really dreaming of is love. Starbuck is the catalyst, helping her to see herself for the beauty she is, and making a very astute comment about his attempt to make it rain that also applies to Lizzie’s need for love: “Don’t ask questions, and don’t get sensible.” That is, sit back, be yourself, and let it happen. It applies to falling in love, to making it rain, to just about everything, really. The faithless Noah — and the word “faith” is used against him — doesn’t realize this, and his dreams, whatever they may have been, are stifled out of existence. Everybody else gets theirs.

Some parts are double cast; the Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday cast is the one referred to in this review. Holyoak, as mentioned, makes a good Noah; he’s in both casts, as is Jeremy Anderson as the energetic but simple-minded Jimmy. Anderson plays Jimmy pretty wound up, and the energy brings life to the show — Starbuck could use that kind of energy, in fact — but it makes Jimmy seem a little two-dimensional.

Tom Lamoreaux is believable and gentle as Lizzie’s loving father, and some of their scenes together are very tender. Kim Stone Wares’ performance as Lizzie helps this tremendously. She vividly portrays the numerous emotions Lizzie feels, often in rapid succession, and endears herself to the audience immediately.

Paul Hill seems mis-cast as File, being several years older than Lizzie, and much larger. This causes a lack of chemistry between the two, and makes it hard to get behind the idea of them being together. (Matthieu Kohl plays File in the Monday/Wednesday/Friday cast, and having seen him in another play recently, I can tell that he is much more suited to the role — of course, I haven’t seen DeLayna Anderson, who plays Lizzie in Kohl’s cast, so I don’t know what the chemistry between them is.)

As a whole, “The Rainmaker” is enjoyable and pleasant. The message is uplifting, and there are more laughs than you might expect in a “serious” drama. It’s a celebration of humanity, and of what makes us happy. Ultimately, the power to be happy is within ourselves, and the play reminds us of that.

Larry Shue’s “The Foreigner,” being staged at BYU’s Pardoe Theatre through June 13, is the last show of the season for BYU.

Fittingly, it’s also one of the best.

Set in a fishing lodge in Georgia over the course of three days, “The Foreigner” is a hysterical farce of grand proportions based on one simple premise: Charlie Baker (Marc E. Shaw) is shy. In his own words, he is “shatteringly, profoundly boring,” and his wife back home lets him know this by sleeping around. So when he has to stay at this lodge (with gorgeous set design by Karl T. Pope, by the way) while his buddy goes out on Army maneuvers, he is mortified at the prospect of dealing with the strangers who live there. As a solution, his buddy (Roger Nelson) tells everyone Charlie is a foreigner and doesn’t speak or understand English.

There aren’t too many foreigners in Tilghman County, Georgia, much to the delight of the simple and sweet Betty Meeks (Martha Henstrom), who owns the lodge — and much to the chagrin of the local bad guys, David Lee (Brad Montgomery) and Owen Musser (Cameron Deaver), who are involved in some very sinister activities.

And so once the stage is set — be patient for the first 15 minutes or so, as things get established — one hilarious situation after another ensues. First it’s the basic idea of people speaking freely about their secrets in front of Charlie, thinking he can’t understand them. Then it’s the dim-witted Ellard Simms (Aaron Johnston) trying to teach him English. Eventually, it’s all the good guys out-witting the bad guys, who really are evil, and perhaps more realistically so than you expect in a light-hearted farce.

In fact, this farce actually has a bit more to it than is typical for its genre. Charlie brightens the life of everyone he deals with. He lets dear old Mrs. Meeks think she understands his fake quasi-European foreign-babble, simply because it makes her feel better. He lets Catherine (Katie Foster), David’s fiancee, pour her heart out to him, even though he “doesn’t understand,” because she has no one else to talk to. And he lets Ellard think he’s succeeding at teaching him English because it makes Ellard feel smart.

Though he’s deceiving everyone, Charlie is not deceptive or malicious. It is only out of his pity for Mrs. Meeks, in fact, that he allows the charade to advance, not wanting her to feel dumb at having been tricked by his friend. And as things go on, he becomes more than just “the foreigner” — he becomes a real person to everyone, and also to himself. He slowly develops a personality — something, he says, he never had before. This is a farce with heart, believe it or not.

Which does not prevent it from being paralyzingly, achingly, devastatingly funny. This is a show that makes you LAUGH, loud and long and from the diaphragm.

Shaw, as Charlie, is one of the original members of the Garrens Comedy Troupe, a local sketch-and-improv group whose weekly shows are perfect training ground for this kind of silliness. Shaw has never carried a show before, and indeed his small frame and high-tenor voice might leave him destined only for supporting roles. But in “The Foreigner,” he proves his worth as a comedic actor, giving Charlie realism, depth and, most of all, humor. His monologue in which he tells a story in his “native language” (a weird hybrid of English and Russian, it sounds like) is a tour de force of comedy. Shaw can play the lead in any show he wants to; “The Foreigner” proves it.

Johnston, as the simple-minded Ellard, is also a member of the Garrens Comedy Troupe, and in fact for the last year or so has been the major reason to go see a Garrens show. With the Garrens, Johnston makes everything physical, throwing himself (often literally) into his roles with funny faces, pratfalls, accents and an insane amount of energy. Garrens devotees laugh as soon as he walks onstage — except that he rarely walks; he usually bursts. I swear, the man must have no skeletal system, the way he flings himself around.

That same energy carries over into “The Foreigner,” but with refinement, thanks to some careful directing from Charles Metten. Johnston plays Ellard dumb, but fast. He thinks quickly; he just comes up with the wrong answers. Here Johnston, like Shaw, shows his worth as an actor, and not just as a comedy troupe member. He demonstrates his ability to rein in his usually unbridled wackiness, and instead of bouncing off every wall in the room, he only bounces off the walls that need bouncing. No mindless Jim Carrey-style goofiness here. Goofiness, yes, but goofiness that’s perfectly suited to the style of the play.

Shaw and Johnston, friends in real life, have a natural chemistry and make a great comedy team. Their scenes together are sheer brilliant comedy.

Katie Foster, a BYU Theatre mainstay, is excellent as always in her portrayal of Catherine, a gal with a lot of problems. Foster plays her sympathetic and nice, and Catherine’s relationship with Charlie is both sweet and funny.

Ultimately, “The Foreigner” succeeds because it accomplishes its major goal: to make the audience laugh. It’s as simple as that. Look at the subtext if you want, examine the social commentary if you must, but do it after the show is over. While it’s going on, you’ll be too busy laughing.

When informed that you are about to watch a 200-year-old comedy written by some Danish guy you’ve never heard of, you might suspect that you’re in for three hours of obscure jokes that didn’t translate well, and which were probably only funny 200 years ago, and that the term “comedy” will have been used very loosely.

At least this was my feeling as I entered BYU’s Margetts Theatre to watch “Erasmus Montanus.” I’d seen centuries-old “comedies” by well-known playwrights like Shakespeare that weren’t very funny, and I’d also seen “comedies” by obscure people like Thomas Dekker (“Shoemaker’s Holiday”) that also weren’t funny. But at least those were written in English! Something that had to be translated — ooooh, it didn’t bode well.

So you can imagine my sheer delight and child-like wonderment when “Erasmus Montanus” opened with the cast lip-synching “Da Da Da” (that catchy ’80s song in the Volkswagen commercial) while several people manipulated marionettes of farm animals and explanatory supertitles were projected on the back wall of the set. I could see immediately that the play was going to be nowhere near what author Ludvig Holberg or translator Gerald Argetsinger had in mind, and that this variation was a GOOD thing.

Director Eric Samuelson notes in the program that he and the cast “messed with the script bigtime.” They cut out two characters, changed the genders of three others, introduced a plot twist that changes the entire last act of the play, and changed many, many lines. All in the interest of making it funnier.

And make it funny they did.

“Erasmus Montanus,” as produced by the BYU Theatre Department, is hysterically, frantically, absurdly funny. It takes place in a backwoods town called Skunk Hollow, where the folks are simple and ignorant. Rasmus Berg (Ary Farahnakian) goes off to college and comes back educated — a little TOO educated, in fact. He now demands to be called Erasmus Montanus, speaks Latin all the time (translations are provided in the aforementioned supertitles), and just generally acts like a pompous jerk. Worse, he starts spreading the crazy notion that the earth is round! The townsfolk won’t stand for it, especially Mama Jeronimus (played with outrageous flair by Elary Allen), the town hairdresser and chief gossip. She usually makes her points not by quoting Bible verses, but by citing the reference and expecting everyone to know what it says. And now she won’t let her daughter Lisbed (Susan Kimberly Davis) marry Erasmus — not until he recants on this whole “earth is round” business.

What follows — well, what follows is irrelevant. Of course Erasmus and Lisbed wind up together in the end, and everybody’s happy. The destination is not the important thing; the fun is in getting there. The show features several lip-synched musical numbers, usually with Road Show-quality choreography (that’s intentional, I think). It’s mostly country songs that are used, expressing the current sentiments of the characters. The funniest of these numbers is Erasmus’ heart-felt rendition of “All by Myself,” in which he lip-syncs onstage alone, save for the presence of the farm animals — marionettes manipulated with great skill by Clin Eaton, Athena Madan, Emily Ireta Perez and Rachel Rawlins.

(The only complaint I have about the show is that those marionettes are often used downstage, near the front row. They’re low to the ground, too, which means anyone sitting further back than Row 2 often can’t see what they’re doing. This is a shame, because you miss a lot of jokes that way — especially when two of the animals relieve themselves, via water pistol, on Erasmus.)

Erasmus’ parents are played by Deric C. Nance and Genesis Eve Speer. Nance’s character doesn’t have much to do after the first 45 minutes or so, but when he’s onstage, he plays everything to the hilt, putting his entire body and voice into his country bumpkin character.

Playing the town mayor is Jjana Valentiner Morrill, a fiery, energetic actress whose scenes with the gaudily costumed Elary Allen are priceless.

Rounding out the cast are Julie Hawkins as the town schoolteacher, David Softley as Erasmus’ brother Jacob, and Steve Watts as an Army lieutenant who comes in to — well, don’t ask.

Softley’s performance is probably the deepest, which isn’t saying much when most of the acting is broad and silly. But in fact, it takes great skill to make anything seem real and believable when everything surrounding it has been odd and crazy. And Softley does just that as he tries to convince Erasmus that the value of knowledge is in its use. It’s an important character, one that needs to be played realistically, and Softley does a great job.

The show is just under two hours long, has audience participation (Lavell Edwards got dragged onstage for country dancing the night I was there), and seems to have some room for improvisation by the actors, which is always fun. Ludvig Holberg’s message may not get emphasized quite as much as he might have liked, but on the other hand, who wants a message? “Erasmus Montanus” is loony, wacky, outlandish and weird. It’s as if a romance/comedy/farce were made into a Warner Bros. cartoon. It would impossible to list everything about it that makes it funny; it would be easier for you to just go see it.

The Desert Star Playhouse in Murray produces melodramatic, family-oriented, cabaret-style, song-and-dance musical parodies, usually full of broad jokes, broad characters, and broad acting. Some shows turn out better than others; the current one — “Hercules: It’s All Greek to Me” — is one of the best.

Desert Star succeeds best when satirizing a more familiar story than that of Hercules, but that doesn’t turn out to be a liability here. The plot? Ancient Greek Hercules (played beefily by former Mr. Utah Rick Miller) wants to marry Deianira (Julie Ann Christensen), but due to the connivings of the evil Medea (Alison Henriksen), he must first perform three seemingly impossible tasks. He does them, of course, and they all live happily ever after.

What makes this show better than some others at the Playhouse is that the script, by Norman E. Plate and Beth Bruner, has fewer lame, cheap-shot jokes than usual, and far more genuinely witty, funny lines instead. The Greeks began the Olympics, and the Olympics are coming to Utah in four years — and yet only one very brief reference is made to them. That shows considerable restraint, especially at the Desert Star Playhouse.

In one scene, Hercules re-routes a river in order to clean out Medea’s palace (one of his tasks). As the palace is flooded with water and the entire cast floats past, some of them several times, we hear and see references to “Titanic” (complete with a dead floating body), “Jaws” (“That was no boating accident!” yells someone), “The Poseidon Adventure,” the Beach Boys, and the song “Old Man River” — all in about 60 seconds.

The show also contains references, at various times, to “Bye Bye Birdie,” “When Harry Met Sally” (I bet most people didn’t catch it, and I can’t explain it, ’cause it’s dirty), “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” Disney’s “Hercules” movie, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” Monty Python’s “bring out your dead” routine from “Holy Grail,” Harvey the invisible rabbit (it’s a horse in this show), and the Grecian urn bit from “The Music Man.”

Unlike most other Playhouse shows, which tend to hit you over the head with the jokes and which usually make only the broadest pop culture references, “Hercules” allows itself to be fast-paced and even subtle. It’s a hybrid of a very well-produced Road Show and “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

Adding to the zeal and enthusiasm of the show — in fact, carrying the show in many ways — is Nicholas D. Bruun, a BYU student who plays Hercules’ trainer Philo. Bruun brings an energy and dynamic with him onstage that automatically improves everything else that’s going on. He throws himself into his parts with reckless abandon — stay for the post-show Olio, a ’70s tribute, just to see his frenetic disco dancing — and yet simultaneously obviously doesn’t take the whole thing too seriously. Rather than trying desperately to make you laugh, he just does his thing and lets the laughs come.

Two problems with this show: Diomedes (Jesse Dolce), son of Medea who also wants to marry Deianira, is inexplicably played as an over-the-top flamboyant homosexual. This is a cheaper laugh than the show needs, though it’s fairly typical of Desert Star mentality.

Also, Medea’s maid Thoula, while performed smartly by Amy Nattress, is written as a subservient animal. Really — Medea literally treats her like a dog several times, and it’s a little creepy, almost disturbing, to watch. It’s probably supposed to make Medea seem more villainness-like, but it seems so odd. (Still, it’s nice to hear Thoula refer to Philo, her new-found love, as “my own geek god.”)

“Hercules” is a fast-paced, very funny show, miles above the pie-in-the-face goofiness Desert Star usually serves up. See it and see what a good parody/melodrama is all about.

Music, dance and good old-fashioned fun just for the fun of it are celebrated in “Crazy for You,” the “new” Gershwin musical being produced at Pioneer Theatre Company through May 16.

“Crazy for You” was a Broadway sensation a few years ago when it premiered. All of the songs are from old George and Ira Gershwin shows of the ’20s and ’30s, while the script, characters and dialogue are all the modern inventions of talented playwright Ken Ludwig. The play is set in 1936, so you get the music of that era, combined with the typical Broadway-musical plot of that era, combined with some very snappy, witty dialogue that is more characteristic of the ’90s.

And of course the whole thing gets a very classy treatment at Pioneer Theatre Company, where even something as silly and fun as this somehow seems big and important.

The plot has New York banker Bobby Child (Stacey Todd Holt) having to go to Deadrock, Nev., to foreclose on an old theater. He falls in love with Polly (Nancy Anderson), who is the theater-owner’s daughter, but has to impersonate famous Broadway producer Bela Zangler (Max Robinson) in order to win her love, as well as put on a show to raise money to keep himself from having to foreclose on the theater. Naturally, the real Zangler shows up, Polly finds out, and everything gets all nutty.

The show is a joy from start to finish, with big musical numbers full of tap dancing and some very creative dance moves. (One scene has all the lights go out except for small lights attached to the cast members’ feet, so all we see is some well-choreographed movement of light. Very clever.) There’s plenty of singing, of course — those great old Gershwin songs like “Embraceable You,” “I Got Rhythm,” and “Someone to Watch over Me,” among many others — but there’s a lot of funny, broad dialogue too. The set-up/punchline one-two shot gets a lot of work in this show, with exchanges like:

“He’ll go to Deadrock over my dead body!”
“That sounds like a good route to me.”

Stacey Todd Holt is strong as Bobby. He sings and dances quite well, as does his co-star, Nancy Anderson. Pioneer mainstay Max Robinson is marvelously funny as Bela Zangler, and it is perhaps he who displays the most obvious knack for comedy in this show, though Holt gets big laughs with some of his physical shtick.

Even having seen this show twice before, I was still quite tickled by Bobby and Zangler’s scene together, in which they are dressed alike and sing “What Causes That?” It’s one of the quieter numbers in the show, but also one of the most charming.

A few aspects of the show are a bit more cartoonish than they ought to be. Sometimes Bobby’s physical stuff gets to be a bit TOO much, particularly early on, and the Fodors’ one-stroke characters seem out of place among the other, more endearing and real folks in Deadrock.

But these are minor complaints. The show is astounding even from a technical aspect, with huge set changes and about a thousand costume changes, all of them handled quickly and admirably. And those big dance numbers! Jim Christian’s choreography is a wonder to behold.

The show is occasionally a bit bawdier than one might expect, though never really downright crude. Aside from that, it’s suitable for the entire family, and is a swell way to spend an evening.

You’ve probably heard that “Riverdance: The Show” is an incredibly popular celebration of Irish dancing and music, with top-notch performers dazzling crowds all around the world. You’ve probably heard that nearly all of the 3 million people, worldwide, who have seen the show have walked away from it amazed at just how entertaining it was.

The rumors are true. “Riverdance” is as good as they say it is, and then some.

“Riverdance: The Show” (that’s the official title — as opposed to “Riverdance: The Floor Wax”?) features a huge cast of singers, dancers and musicians, all of them at the top of their game. Michael Patrick Gallagher and Niamh Roddy are billed as the “principal dancers,” and they are quite good, but neither of them outshines the rest of the ensemble. “Riverdance” is truly a group effort, and every member of the group displays a stunning amount of talent.

The show is not all dancing, though that is what it has become famous for. There are also some songs and instrumental numbers interspersed with the dance numbers. Most of the show celebrates Ireland and Irish culture, though there are a few numbers whose influence is obviously foreign.

“Firedance,” for example, features soloist Rosa Manzano Jimenez in a dance that can best be described as Irish flamenco. Her costume is Latin American, and so are many of her dance steps, and the music is a fascinating combination between the two. Jimenez appears again later in “Heartbeat of the World,” and by the end of the production she has proven herself to be possessed of more charisma, character and emotion than the supposed co-star of the show, Niamh Roddy.

Roddy dances well, as does Gallagher her partner, but neither of them seem to have much personality. Perhaps the attention they must pay to their feet, which tap at a machine-gun pace, prevents them from displaying anything in their faces (except for Gallagher, who seems to have an open-mouthed smirk most of the time).

We will not criticize Gallagher too strongly, though, for his dancing skills are truly amazing. He leaps and taps around the stage flawlessly, demonstrating a talent nearly unparalleled in anything I’ve ever seen.

The show is probably supposed to tell a story; there is some mostly lame and disjointed narration read by John Kavanagh that pops up now and again. It’s mostly poetry on the order of “In dance and song we mourn our children; they carry us over the ocean,” whatever THAT means. It’s the only hokey, roll-your-eyes part of an otherwise very snappy, well-produced show.

Soloists Sara Clancy and Michael Londra sing magnificently, and the Russian Folk Ballet Company performs feats of acrobatic dance that will amaze you.

A highlight of the show is when three American street-type characters get into a tap-dancing showdown with Gallagher and two of his buddies. It’s sort of a good-natured Irish “West Side Story,” with both groups ably performing their particular styles of dance — and then imitating and mocking the other. (Watching the three tough-looking guys imitate the proper and dignified Irish dancing is hysterical, and it shows “Riverdance’s” sense of humor about itself.)

The best indication of “Riverdance’s” success is the fact that when it’s over, the audience is happy. The show is simply uplifting, joyous, fun, entertaining and powerful. People feel like dancing on the way to their cars. There is nothing questionable or in poor taste in the show. What you see and hear is a variety of remarkably talented performers, doing their thing flawlessly and accepting your applause and standing ovation at the end. The word “cultural” turns many people off, and that’s too bad, because while “Riverdance” is certainly cultural, it is also a show that can entertain even the most down-to-earth, non-theater-going person.

Provo Theatre Company has a well-deserved reputation for putting on high-quality, professional shows, generally of a more light-hearted nature. This season has featured the farcical “Lend Me a Tenor,” the nostalgic “Forever Plaid,” and the hilarious “A Tuna Christmas,” to name a few, and this summer will bring “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

Let it not be said, however, that Provo Theatre Company cannot handle serious drama. The current production is David Mamet’s controversial “Oleanna,” and while the play doesn’t have Mamet’s infamous swearing, it does have all the elements of a typical Mamet work: realistic, plentiful dialogue, and conflict. BUCKETS of conflict.

There are only two characters: John (Carl Belliston) and Carol (Celesta Davis). John is a college professor, though we don’t know exactly what he teaches. Carol is his student, and her background and upbringing are unclear, becoming even muddier after the first act. We don’t know either of their last names, nor at which university all this takes place. All of the action takes place in John’s office over the course of a few months — or more accurately, the action takes place elsewhere and we see only the aftermath, in John’s office.

Such a set-up — one set, two actors, minimal action, lots of talking — could be a boring, disastrous flop were each of those elements not played to the hilt. Fortunately, they are.

Director Charles Lynn Frost keeps the set simple and sparse, but with one significant, symbolic twist: After each act, a faultline running down the floor of the stage gets tweaked, symbolizing the growing rift between John and Carol. For you see, after a seemingly innocent conversation regarding Carol’s grade, John’s desire to help her, and the nature of a college education, accusations begin to fly and a modern-day witch hunt takes place. The charges brought against John are so unfair, so appalling, so infuriating, that one cannot help but be riveted as he tries to talk sense into Carol.

Carol’s destructive actions are seemingly unmotivated, and her character is confusing, and she is portrayed this way on purpose. Watch her taking notes in the first act and see how naive and almost dim she seems. Then watch her in the second, and especially the third act, and see if she’s the same person. Is she? Was she merely pretending at the beginning? Or is she actually behaving exactly the same way all through the play, and we merely interpret her differently based on what we learn of her? The question goes unanswered, again on purpose.

For that is the basis of the play — interpretation. One can say or do something that is intended as harmless and meaningless, but it can be interpreted — misinterpreted, over-interpreted, whatever — by others to be quite significant. Can Carol really believe all the things she charges John with? Can she really have interpreted him that way? The audience is incredulous and outraged, along with John, that someone could possibly be so narrow-minded and cruel, and frustrated that our society is set up to give those insane accusations credence.

Not that John is without fault. On the contrary, he is pedantic, verbose, self-centered, hypocritical, and elitist. By the end of the play, you will fully hate one of the two characters, and there will come a moment — a very pivotal moment — when you will, along with one of them, wish the worst upon the other. This catharsis does not come, though, for the audience or for the characters, and we are left, with them, to examine ourselves and try to determine how we could have gotten so worked up to begin with.

That’s the nature of this play. It makes you think. The ending is not happy, but neither is it depressing. The play is forceful, powerful and engrossing, as it practically grabs you by the shirt collar and demands that you listen to it. It is not light-hearted, happy fare; nor is it for the casual theater-goer who likes to hear snippets of the dialogue and whisper to his or her neighbor the rest of the time. You have to WATCH “Oleanna,” and LISTEN to it. Fortunately, these actors and this director make it impossible to resist doing either. This is a drama not to be missed.

It would be difficult to do a bad production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” but if any theater ever had two strikes against it from the outset, it’s Hale Center Theater Orem.

The theater has a very small acting space, and “Joseph” has a huge, very active cast. Plus, there’s audience on three, sometimes four sides in that theater, also making it difficult to stage a musical. (It’s hard to do a spectacle when there are no wings or curtains to hide behind.)

And yet, fantastically, despite these potential limitations, the Hale Center Theater does a bang-up job with the show. If you didn’t get to see the recent ultra-expensive Donny Osmond version at Kingsbury Hall, forget about it. This production in Orem is as entertaining and well-done as any production of this show has ever been, Donny or no Donny.

It has been said before that much of the credit goes to the show’s authors, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The show is short (way under two hours), fast-paced, light-hearted, and very clever. You can just picture lyricist Rice giggling with delight as he wrote one ridiculous rhyme after another, and Webber had a field day with a dozen or so different musical styles — everything from country-western to Calypso.

But the Hale Center Theater takes what is already a stellar script and score and turns it into something enthralling, almost magical. Under the guidance of legendary local director Syd Riggs, the large cast sings and dances and goofs around with energy, gusto, and conviction. Costumes change with lightning speed, often to fit the genre of music currently being utilized (the Elvis-adoring girl dancers’ costumes are particularly clever, being a neat blend between ancient Egyptian and ’50s teen-ager). There is literally never a slow moment in the show, as the pace is kept up continually, barely leaving you a chance to catch your breath.

There are two casts in the show, one on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and another on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I saw the Saturday cast, although the other cast’s Joseph (TJ Young) was filling in for Neal C. Johnson. The entire cast I saw was top-notch; I can only assume the other cast is just as good.

Jason Webb is particularly worth watching. He plays the Butler in the M-W-F cast and Reuben in the other cast, but the night I was there, he was doing double duty, playing both parts. This talented singer/actor was last seen in Provo Theatre Company’s “Forever Plaid,” where his innocent, infectious grin was also an asset. In “Joseph,” he brings wit and energy to both of his parts and manages to stand out, even in an ensemble cast where it’s possible for everyone to blend in together.

Jen Webb sings beautifully and IS beautiful as the Narrator, and TJ Young is as Joseph-y as any Joseph you’ll see: handsome, smart, a walking work of art, to paraphrase one of the show’s lyrics, not to mention possessing a seriously toothy grin and some decent acting skills. There’s actually some real emotion in “Close Every Door” (the show’s only really serious number), and in the reunion scene with his brothers and father.

Gordy Villarini is the Elvis-like Pharaoh, and as is often the case with this role, he is unintelligible when he sings. (I guess Elvis was rather unintelligible, too, now that I think about it.) This unfortunately limits what could otherwise be a very funny and appealing musical number, because you just can’t understand what he’s singing, so caught up is he in imitating Elvis’s mumbly vocal style.

Small criticisms aside, the show is fantastic. Despite the small acting space and large cast, it never gets crowded, even when there are over 20 actors onstage at once. The show is choreographed (by Brent Mills) so no one ever seems to be in anyone else’s way.

We won’t question why “Joseph” is so popular in Utah, and why nearly every theater in the state is performing it this year. The fact is, it’s a fun, family-friendly show, and any chance you have to see a good production of it, go for it. Hale Center Theater’s version is as good as any you’ll see, so take advantage of the opportunity now.

The current Hale Center Theater Orem production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” begins with the narrator and some ushers “randomly” choosing 12 audience members to star in the show. Coincidentally, the chosen ones’ names are already listed in the program.

I have two theories on why this concept — which does not play heavily in Syd Riggs’ directorial vision of the show beyond the first couple minutes — was used:

1) To symbolize the fact that we’ve seen this show so many times, they really COULD select random audience members to perform it. I imagine it being akin to the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” screenings, where fans show up in costume and act out their favorite parts. (Wait, that’s actually not a bad idea. Don’t steal it.)

2) To give viewers a means of differentiating this “Joseph” from the others they’ve seen. (“Hale Theater? 2001? Oh, right, the one where they pulled the guys out of the audience.”)

Because aside from that, this one’s no different from the myriad other “Josephs” Utah has seen in the past six years — and that’s not a criticism. As written, it’s a funny, fast-paced show with catchy tunes and pleasantly simple moral themes. This production is no less amazing nor Technicolor than its predecessors.

The lead roles are double-cast, but they do not follow a simple Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday rotation. If a particular performer tickles your fancy, it may be best to call the theater to determine when he or she will be on stage.

Justin Utley (double-cast with Jason Celaya) is a fine Joseph: great voice, a tan and hairless body, not overly smiley. He has a great stage presence, helping us like a character that is tragically under-written. (Joseph never acts in this show; he only reacts. Not that it matters, but technically, this makes him a bad protagonist.)

The brothers are all similarly likable, and a few get their moments in the spotlight. Kevin Goertzen is funny in “Those Canaan Days” (which also benefits from some amusing tin-cup percussion); Alberto G. Oquendo leads a peppy “Banjamin Calypso.”

The costumes are impressive, as they nearly always are at the Hale. This is a show that thinks nothing of having the entire cast change costumes just for one number, and it pays off. The fashion nightmares in “Go, Go, Go Joseph” are priceless.

Cody Hale’s musical arrangements are good, and the recordings are top-notch. Jenny Giauque’s creative choreography makes effective use of the limited stage space. The musical direction, by Rob Moffat, is stellar, not to mention amazing and Technicolor.

Should you go? Yes. First-timers and old fans alike will find much to enjoy in this light-hearted, family-friendly show.

“The Front Page,” a ’20s-style comedy being performed at Pioneer Theatre Company, has several flaws, but the biggest one is this: It’s not funny.

Rarely does a show lend itself to such succinct description, but this one does. Despite being 2 hours and 45 minutes long — way too long for a comedy anyway — there are maybe five really good laughs in it. And one of those is the very last line!

The setting is Chicago, 1928, the night before an anarchist is to be executed by the state. Several reporters from different newspapers are hanging around the press room at the Criminal Courts Building adjacent to the jail, waiting for something to happen. Among them is Hildy Johnson (Michael Lasswell), who is quitting so he can go to New York tonight and get married tomorrow.

But, as fate would have it, Earl Williams the convict (Richard Mathews) escapes from the jail and goes on the lam, with reporters and cops chasing after him. Hildy is torn — for about two seconds — between his love (his fiancee) and his REAL love (yellow journalism) and winds up chasing the story, too.

Lots of stuff happens with the convict hiding in a desk, and a prostitute throwing herself out a window. (In the context of the play, it makes sense.) Eventually, nobody learns anything, nobody gets in trouble because the journalists are as corrupt as the mayor and the sheriff, and we all live happily ever after.

Except that somewhere along the way, director Charles Morey forgot to have anything funny happen. The play is obviously trying to be a farce, though I don’t think it was really written that way. There are some farcical elements — the easy wrap-up at the end, the hiding in the desk, the fact that no great truths are learned — but not enough of them. While a farce uses a variety of stock characters to provide humor, “The Front Page” uses about 17 versions of the same stock character, and none of them are funny. Nearly everyone yells everything, and everyone emotes at the same level. Eventually, everyone starts to sound the same. You could close your eyes and not be able to distinguish which character was talking.

Michael Lasswell certainly gives it his all as Hildy. You can tell he’s working hard as he runs around, trying to milk the story for all it’s worth while at the same time trying to keep his fiancee from giving up on him. And Ross Bickell as his boss, Walter Burns, brings a lot of energy. But the two of them together don’t add up to much, and there is little to involve the viewer in the show. The first act, in particular, is slow and with very little to sink one’s teeth into. The second and third acts are more interesting, but not any funnier.

Two performers stand out. David B. Heuvelman as Murphy, one of the reporters, manages to give some realism to his role, moreso than any of his counterparts. And Deirdre Madigan, as the prostitute whose relationship with the convict goes curiously unexplained, also demonstrates that she knows what she’s doing. Rather than taking control of the stage by yelling, which is what nearly everyone else does, she commands attention the old-fashioned way: by ACTING, and by showing sincerity.

Unfortunately, even these two well-acted parts don’t add much humor. And that’s the most disappointing thing about “The Front Page”: it just doesn’t make you laugh.

While Desert Star Playhouse’s shows are usually just good, clean fun that don’t require much of you in the thinking department, the current “Les Miserables: A Whole Lot Less Miserable” may not be as enjoyable for the casual theater-goer.

This is because the play lacks one thing: a plot.

It’s a parody of the musical theater sensation “Les Miserables,” of course, but it’s also a parody of the commercialization of that show, and of the people who are die-hard fanatics about it.

And so the Desert Star version turns into more of a collage of parody and satire, rather than an actual show with an actual storyline. The characters onstage “know” they are in a show, and they make reference to it constantly. There are too many lines about “this scene is going on too long,” or “here’s what happens next in the script,” or “I’m just a bit-player with a couple lines.” Instead of being the story of the French revolution it’s the story of Desert Star doing a show.

None of which is necessarily bad. It just means that if you are unfamiliar with “Les Miserables,” the story behind it, Broadway in general, and the last several Desert Star shows, you may not enjoy this production, because there is very little in the way of traditional heroes and villains to get involved in.

Some of the “Les Miserables” parodies are quite clever. The scene in which Fontine (Portia Alison) is, as she puts it, “squash-ed” by a cart is quite funny, as is the number mocking the commercialization of “Les Miserables.”

The song and dance that ends the first act is a dead-on parody of Broadway “show-stoppers,” and the most ambitious musical piece the Desert Star has tried in at least the last five shows (which is as many as I’ve seen).

There are two scene-stealers in this show, one good and one bad. Kaycee Raquel, who plays the spoiled Eponine, delivers each line directly to the audience, and when she’s not the focus of the scene, she’ll do her best to take it anyway. (One of her co-stars even ad-libbed a line in reference to this in a recent performance: “I’ll tell you about it as soon as SHE stops upstaging me!” he said as Raquel hogged the audience’s attention when she should have been standing to the side quietly.)

The other scene-stealer — the one who does it in a good way — is Paul T. Murphy as Marius. He has the strongest singing voice of the cast, and plays Marius very smart and funny. The show is supposed to be goofy and silly, and Marius is no exception, but Murphy plays him with a kind of dignity and intelligence that makes him even funnier. You can tell there’s some real talent hidden behind the pratfalls and groan-inducing one-liners.

The “Give My Regards to Broadway” Olio after the show is entertaining, though again, a knowledge of Broadway shows is certainly helpful.

To the Desert Star’s discredit, a few songs in the show itself and in the Olio were borrowed heavily from the Broadway parody troupe “Forbidden Broadway,” whose CDs are readily available. Desert Star stole a couple songs for their Christmas show, too, which also did not escape this reviewer; one would think they’d have learned their lesson by now. It is perfectly acceptable to perform others’ songs in a show, but not without giving credit to the writers. Tom Jordan and Norman E. Plate are listed as writers, but a few of the songs were clearly lifted from “Forbidden Broadway.”

Desert Star is quite capable of producing funny, satirical shows without having to swipe the work of others.