Review: MOON OVER BUFFALO Shines on the Belmont

Ken Ludwig is known for many great comedies, particularly farces; LEND ME A TENOR may be his best known, and it's certainly worth the trip to watch it. But MOON OVER BUFFALO has many of the same tropes, and it's equally funny; it ought to be, having been written with a part for Carol Burnett.

Can two not-quite washed-up Lunt and Fontaine wannabes who've never quite made it since their original Broadway success become movie stars? Will their daughter come to her senses, return to acting, and dump her TV weatherman boyfriend? Did hubby have an affair with the cast ingenue, and is she or isn't she pregnant? For George Hay (Jack Hartman) and his wife Charlotte (Christine Kolosky, doing well in Carol Burnett's role), it's all in a day's turmoil.

Jaci Keagy has done a fine job translating the Ludwig classic to the Belmont's studio/black box theatre, no mean feat given its size and where the audience is placed in relation to the action. Just because Jack Hartman's proven his physical comedy chops doing a pratfall inches away from the feet of the first row, it doesn't mean that a single audience ankle is in danger; everyone's fine, including Hartman. Hartman's fine; its his alter-ego George's ego that's taking the beating, and his id that's taking over as he becomes increasingly inebriated during one show day.

Hartman and Kolosky are delightful playing George and Charlotte's marital ills off of each other, and reminiscing about their prior career highlights as they watch themselves sink into theatrical oblivion in Buffalo. George's desire to swashbuckle Cyrano de Bergerac into death isn't helping. Howard, their daughter's boyfriend and TV personality, isn't helping (Charlie Heller shows amazing potential at pointing to cloud maps should he ever need a backup career; he's dryly hysterical here), while Rosalind, their daughter (Kelly Warren) is realistic as a young woman desperately trying to avoid the family business and failing at it.

The sane one is Paul (Ernesto Rosas), the company manager, who's survived George and Charlotte, but possibly not his love for Rosalind, while the most insane of the lot is hard of hearing... and thinking... Ethel, Charlotte's mother, who's spent her life in the business though no one's sure just how. Sheryl Rade is the show stealer here, and completely able to obtain laughs with the flick of her wrist, the flick of a sewing needle, or the dumping of a bottle of whiskey into the coffee pot. Rade must perform at the Belmont again under any and all circumstances.

The pacing is fast, the pratfalls are frequent, the Cyrano noses are everywhere you least expect, and Noel Coward's PRIVATE LIVES has never been worse, just as a famous Hollywood director comes in to scout George and Charlotte for a new film that could save their careers.

Ashley deVoe plays ingenue Eileen, and Paul Lajkowicz the Hays' lawyer Howard, with the good humor required to take on the powerhouses that are George and Charlotte's roles and still remain visible in their smaller roles.

Its a far cry from the upcoming Belmont main stage production of MY FAIR LADY, but it's pricelessly funny and Keagy has staged all the exits and perils on stage perfectly. If this is the new quality of farce production at the Belmont, then we need more of it in upcoming seasons. Kudos all round.