Picture courtesy Tacoma Musical Playhouse
Published in the Weekly Volcano, Dec. 3, 2015
Gunnar Ray and Amelia Stiles in back seat, Stephen Bucheit and Allyson Jacobs-Lake in front. Photo by Kat Dollarhide, courtesy Tacoma Musical Playhouse |
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Tacoma Musical Playhouse is cute and
lighthearted musical comedy. Written by Jeremy Sams and Ray Roderick, with
music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, it is based on
the movie starring Dick Van Dyke as the eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts (played
here by Stephen Bucheit).
The story takes place in 1910,
and the turn-of-the-century costumes by Jocelyn Fowler, Margot Webb, and Grace
Stone, and period set pieces by Bruce Haasl are wonderful. Kudos to Haasl for
the marvelous old car and all its special effects, and for the beautiful
backdrop paintings (with help from Master Carpenter Dennis Kurtz).
Potts’s children Jeremy (Gunnar
Ray) and Jemima (Amelia Stiles) fall in love with a broken down old racing car
and Caractacus — who has invented a machine that makes a candy that you can
play like a flute, called “Toots Sweet,” and a haircutting machine that cuts
hair with disastrous results — restores
the old car. In the process, he gives it some special powers such as the
ability to float on water. It is rumored that it can even fly (audiences will
have to wait until the climax of the show to see if it really can).
There is, of course, a love
story between Caractacus and a beautiful woman named Truly Scrumptious (Allyson
Jacobs-Lake), and some nefarious villains including the evil Baron Bomburst of
Vulgaria (John Kelleher) and his wife, Baroness Bomburst (Dana Johnson), a
couple of spies, Boris (Michael Syverson) and Goran (Brittany Henderson). These
four bad guys plus the terrible Child Catcher (Jake Atwood) provided most of
the outlandish humor in the play.
It’s a fun play, but opening
night I felt that some cast members were not throwing themselves into their
roles with the kind of gusto the roles call for. The lack of oomph, that
special extra spark we expect from good actors, was especially noticeable in Bucheit.
He plays Caractacus well and sings nicely, but on opening night he did not show
the energy I would have hoped. To a lesser degree this is true of Jacobs-Lake,
whose singing is truly scrumptious (pun intended). Her singing on the ballad
“Lovely, Lonely Man” provides the most touching romantic moment in the play.
The children, Jeremy and Jemima,
are excellent, expressive, lively and loveable. Two actors alternate in the
role of Jemima, Stiles, whom I saw, shares the role with Summer Mays.
The actors who steal every scene
they were in were Kelleher as Baron Bombast and Johnson as the Baroness. They
are wonderful, truly owning their roles. The two musical numbers they shine in,
“Chu-Chi Face,” a delightfully comic love song to each other, and “The Bombie
Samba,” a wild Latin song-and-dance number with the Baron and Baroness backed
up by the ensemble, are the comic and musical highlights of the show.
If you are looking for something
different by way of theatrical holiday entertainment, this might be just what
you’re looking for.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, 2
p.m. Saturday, , through Dec. 20, $22-$31, Tacoma Musical Playhouse at The
Narrows Theatre, 7116 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253-565-6867, http://www.tmp.org.
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