Raintree County Production “Star-Spangled Girl” Well Paced

By Barbara Douglas

For the Muncie Star

NEW CASTLE – The Raintree County Opera House Guild’s second show of the season, Neil Simon’s “Star-Spangled Girl,” helped a sparse audience to forget the heat and laugh in the Memorial Park Shelter House Friday evening.

The Guild is performing its repertory of five plays in the shelter house while waiting for the completion of the restoration of the Guyer Opera House in Lewisville .

A well-rehearsed cast, directed by Dick Willis, propelled the zany Simon comedy through its paces and managed to keep its morale high in spite of the numerous empty chairs.

A few sound coordination difficulties marred several scenes. It was also awkward for the actors to have to walk all the way through the audience in order to suggest other rooms of the apartment. However, given the physical setup of the shelter house and the arena staging, the problem would be virtually impossible to solve. Another unanswered puzzle is why Norman returned from his closet altercation with a vacuum cleaner with a tire around his neck rather than a suction hose.

The story centers on an overworked young writer, who writes the entire contents of a subversive magazine each month while his roommate, Andy, pays the rent by playing gigolo to their daredevil landlady. One of the play’s biggest disappointments is that we never get to meet this mysterious Mrs. Mackininee. She is so busy making passes at bridges with airplanes, skydiving, riding the wild surf and dashing about on her motorcycle that Simon didn’t leave her enough time to appear in the play. This is unfortunate since she is probably the most interesting character in the script.

Although it took the audience a few minutes to adjust to the extreme eccentricity of his interpretation, enormous humor is incorporated into Jim Baird’s obsessed Norman . The physicalization of his character improves steadily as the play progresses. By act three’s karate match, Baird is in full control as he threatens his roommate Andy with his lethal weapons. Obviously Norman is intended to be fussy, nervous and jumpy, but too much twitching, blinking and snorting can quickly become distracting. As the mouthpiece for some of Simon’s funniest lines, he manages to make the most of the majority.

Phil Barr’s intellectual cynic, Andy Hobart, offers Barr a much more challenging role than that of Shem in “Two by Two.” His startling smile and deep vocal intonation serve him well in presenting the verbose publisher. It would be difficult for any actor to make Simon’s weak and cliched ending believable. Andy’s character’s complete and unmotivated flip regarding Sophie is impossible for the audience to fully swallow due to the script rather than any particular lack in Barr’s portrayal.

The play’s love interest is supplied with southern-fried self-assurance by Vicki Horn in the role of the super-patriot swimmer, Sophie Rauschmeyer. Horn was admirably restrained in building up to her character’s growing hysteria. However, it would have been gratifying to see her pull out all the stops and allow her nerves to really snap and pop after her discharge from the YWCA. She skillfully manages to hint through subtle stares and vocal nuances that she finds Hobart more attractive than her lines would at first seem to imply. This helps the audience to accept her sudden and overwhelming realization that she is wildly attracted to this man she has professed to detest.

The Opera Guild’s production of “Star-Spangled Girl” provides a completely different brand of humor from that employed by the group’s first show, “Two by Two.” The Guild seems to have planned its repertory schedule well in order to offer its summer audience well-balanced variety.

It is truly sad that theater enthusiasts in Henry and surrounding counties do not appear to be giving the ensemble the support it need to make this first season a success. Certainly the weather is hot, and it takes an effort to leave the air-conditioned television room, but it is an effort which the audience members will find well repaid in smiles and chuckles.

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Several comments on important aspects of “Two by Two” had to be omitted from Saturday’s review due to lack of space. Certainly a discussion of the show is incomplete without mentioning the wives, the choreography and the wondrous costumes.

Vicki Horn as Shem’s shrewish wife, Leah, managed to squeeze a good deal of humor from her cardboard character. Kathy Thompson embodied Goldie, the luscious temple girl, in an appropriately vacuous manner. The singing treat of the evening was supplied by the professional quality of the voice of Diane Crisp as Rachel.

All members of the cast were aided by the incredibly intricate, if somewhat gaudily colored, costumes. They were meticulously fashioned by costumers Theresa Gorenz, Diane Selvy and Vickie Willis, with macramé, patchwork, beads, fur, ribbon, fringe, and leather.

The evening’s most uninspired note unfortunately resulted from the limp and unfocused choreography of Virginia Dickerson. It is assumed that the group numbers were intended to portray a sense of Jewish ethnic, but they failed in both conception and demonstration.

Overall, the first presentation indicates the Raintree County Opera House Guild is off to a promising start. “Two by Two” will be presented July 29 and August 11 at 8 p.m. in the Shelter House of Henry County Memorial Park, just north of New Castle off Ind. 3. Tickets are available at the Shelter House for $2.50 and can be reserved by calling 529-1004. Season passbooks are available for $10.

Other shows for the Summer Theater in the Park, which are being performed on a revolving schedule, are as follows: “Star Spangled Girl,” July 23, Aug. 2, 10; “The Prince from Pendelpoop,” July 19, 20, 28, Aug. 6, 12; “The Rainmaker,” July 21, 22, 30, Aug. 3, 9; and “Goldilocks,” July 26, 27, Aug. 4, 5, 13.