Seven Angels Theatre has a new artistic director and a new managing director. It’s the first major change in leadership at the Waterbury-based professional theater since it was founded 35 years ago by Semina DeLaurentis. Judging from the season-opening play under the new directors, not much has changed and that’s a good thing.
Seven Angels spent decades getting to know Waterbury audiences and new artistic director Constantine Pappas and managing director Craig David Rosen are trusting the instincts of their predecessors. The bright, colorful, high-kicking, chaotic and kooky play “Lucky Stiff” kicks off a season of farces and outrageous musical comedies.
There is another familiar aspect of Seven Angels, one that a lot of other theaters in transitions couldn’t manage. Pappas is starring in “Lucky Stiff,” just as DeLaurentis did in so many productions at the theater when she ran it.
The director of “Lucky Stiff” is Robert Mintz, known in the Hartford area for the musicals he’s done recently at Playhouse on Park, where he choreographed “Singin’ in the Rain” (and also played Cosmo) and “Bandstand” and directed “The Prom.”
Mintz’s style is perky, fast-paced and energetic. When people run in this show they lift their knees high up in a cartoon style. When they’re surprised — and they’re constantly getting surprised — it’s a full-bodied reaction with outthrust arms, whipped-back head and twisted torsos. A chase scene in the second act lams doors incessantly.
The 10-person cast shares Mintz’s gift for goofiness, acing his angular, antic choreography and adding over-the-top ridiculous facial expressions and silly voices to the mix. There’s a nice mix of sizes, shapes and sounds in this arrangement of people, but they all work toward a consistent kooky ensemble style. Following an overly dramatic opening song that suggests a more sober evening may be in store, “Lucky Stiff” finds its legs and starts pratfalling deliriously. The only thing that stops the momentum is intermission, an unnecessary intrusion for a show that, even with that break, barely lasts two hours.
Savannah Stevenson as a murder victim’s ex-wife disguised as a maid, Paul Rescigno as a dentist being blackmailed into being an accomplice in a jewelry robbery, Constantine Pappas, as a shoe salesman who will inherit millions of dollars if he squires his dead uncle around Monte Carlo and Molly Model as a persnickety pet care advocate in the musical comedy “Lucky Stiff” at Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury through Oct. 12. (Sam Terrell)
It’s not worth recounting the plot other than to say that a milquetoast British shoe salesman named Harry Witherspoon (Pappas, whose leading-man looks don’t exactly fit the role but finds fresh ways to be awkward and meek) is under the impression that he will inherit $6 million if he follows his deceased uncle’s final request and takes the corpse on a posthumous vacation in Monte Carlo. He is pursued around a resort hotel by an assortment of comically conniving folk eager to get their hands on a mysterious heart-shaped box clutched in the dead man’s hands.
The plot needs to be vague because no one is who they seem and just about everyone has been lied to or has misjudged their situation. Several characters are in disguise — eyepatches and French maid’s outfits are involved. The mystery is compounded by most members of the ensembles cast playing multiple roles. Hailey Aviva shifts from nattering British landlady to drunken French hotel worker.
Among the actors that stay in one single character, Pappas has a fine singing voice and a commanding stage presence. The closest thing the show has to a lead female character is the underwritten, pet-loving Annabel Glick who pursues Witherspoon. Molly Model brings warmth and charm to the role while also keeping up with the outrageousness of her castmates. Savannah Stevenson is loud and loose-limbed as Rita La Porta, the (alleged) murderous adulterous wife of the dead guy. As the poor shlub La Porta drags along on her mission to swipe her hubby’s fortune, Paul Rescigno matches her grandness with a carefully calibrated jitteriness. Jonah is the kind of boyish actor who’s born to play a hotel bellhop. The striking Abby McGough gets a lot of background roles but also a solo song and dance number. Brassy character actors Zaya Da Camara and Jonathan Zalaski anchor the fast-and-loud ensemble scenes.
Perhaps the most impressive performance in “Lucky Stiff” is by Rick Fountain as the titular dead body. He stays hilariously still, barely moving a muscle throughout the show except when called upon to rise for a dream sequence.
“Lucky Stiff” has been around since 1988 and is based on the comic novel “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” by Michael Butterworth. The show came early in the hallowed partnership of lyricist/book writer Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty, who went on to create the musicals “Once on This Island,” “Seussical,” “Ragtime” (which the Goodspeed Opera House did this past spring and which is currently getting a Broadway revival) and “Anastasia” (which had its world premiere at Hartford Stage in 2016). It’s not like any two of those shows could be called similar, but “Lucky Stiff” stands alone in the Ahrens/Flaherty catalogue for its endless, uninhibited frivolity. There’s a touch of romance, and the jokey moral at the end is “It’s good to be alive” (since the title character is not alive) but the main takeaway from all the adultery, burglary, spying and skullduggery in this show is “Don’t get caught.”
“Lucky Stiff” had an off-Broadway run over 35 years and never made it to Broadway, but small professional theaters and community theaters have kept it alive. In Connecticut, less than a month after “Lucky Stiff” Seven Angels’ production ends on Oct. 12, the Goshen Players are opening their own production.
This is the kind of show where a character is completely blind if she doesn’t wear her glasses, or where a wheelchair with a dead body in it is naturally mistaken for a clothes hamper. It is the kind of amusing diversion which, if not played well, could be interminable and excruciating. This cast and director, not to mention a snappy three-piece band that brings out the jaunty pop side of Flaherty’s score, knows what they’re doing, making this “Lucky Stiff” a lucky break for those who were worried that the new leadership team couldn’t carry on the crowd-pleasing Seven Angels vibe.
The new Seven Angels management has maintained not just the theater’s longtime interest in wacky musical comedies but its outreach to the Waterbury community. Certain performances feature free food catered by local eateries. Opening night offered Italian food from Cavallo’s. On Oct. 3, it’s Fascia’s Chocolates. The Oct. 4 evening show has food from Sweet Maria’s bakeshop. On Oct. 10, The Cave is bringing the vittles. For the evening performance on Oct. 11, there’s Angelina’s Apizza. The final Sunday matinee on Oct. 12 is catered by the play’s presenting sponsor, The Big Dipper Ice Cream Parlour in Prospect.
“Lucky Stiff” runs through Oct. 12 at Seven Angels Theatre, 1 Plank Road, Waterbury. Performances are Fridays and Saturday sat 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. $42, $37 veterans and first responders; $20 students. sevenangelstheatre.org.
