Opera House Players, Broadbrook, CT
through September 24, 2017
by Michael J. Moran
In his “Director’s Perspective” on the OHP’s powerhouse
production of “Working,” John Pike recalls how moved he was when, as a college
student in 1978, he saw the short-lived (three weeks) original Broadway
version. With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and five other composers and
lyricists, the score of this “revusical” can sound a bit diffuse, but the 16
singing actors in Pike’s engaging cast invest it with unifying energy and
commitment. While they perform most often as large and small ensembles, many
are also featured as soloists in one or two numbers.
Angela Dias is a forceful schoolteacher in the Mary
Rodgers/Susan Birkenhead song “Nobody Tells Me How.” “It’s an Art” becomes a
star turn for Erica Romeo’s theatrical waitress. Eleven-year-old Sammi
Choquette nearly steals the show in “Neat To Be a Newsgirl.” Dennis J. Scott
and Brian Rucci are heartrending in the poignant “Fathers and Sons.” And the
entire company are nervous wrecks in James Taylor’s manic “Traffic Jam.”
The score is periodically updated to reflect the evolving
workplace, and invites new contributions from colleagues. One of two recent
additions by Lin-Manuel Miranda is “A Very Good Day,” touchingly rendered by
Andrew D. Secker as an adult caretaker and Elizabeth Drevits Tomaszewski as a
nanny.
In spoken interludes between musical numbers, Melody
Gravante-Gunnells is an exuberant dog walker (with a four-pronged leash and a
chorus of grating yaps from sound designer Ron Schallack evoking the unseen
canines), band guitarist Matt Patton wryly laments the hand-to-mouth lifestyle
of a freelance musician, and Dias' world-weary publicist looks and sounds
uncannily like Joan Rivers.
Versatile set design by Francisco Aguas enables quick and
smooth transitions among a wide variety of settings. Resourceful choreography
by Anna Marie Russell enlivens many scenes, especially the hilariously staged
Micki Grant song “Cleanin’ Women."
