A Christmas Memory theater Review
Truman Capote's classic short story is a musical starring Tony winner Alice Ripley at Irish Rep.
A Christmas Memory, a compact short story about about fruitcakes, oddballs and life-changing relationships, has expanded into a two-hour musical. But this warm-hearted yet wobbly production at Irish Rep reminds us that bigger doesn’t mean better.
In 1933, young Buddy (Silvano Spagnuolo) Capote’s stand-in, spends another Christmas with his beloved elderly cousin Sook (Alice Ripley) who’s as nutty as fruitcakes they bake, and as flighty as the kites they send soaring into the Alabama sky. But it’s their last holiday together. He’s getting shipped off to military school and manhood. videodramas.nloogspot.com
That’s straight from Capote’s original, but book writer Duane Poole expands characters who are mentioned in passing. There’s cousins Jennie (Nancy Hess) and Seabon (Samuel Cohen), and a grown-up Buddy (Ashley Robinson), a hotshot New Yorker home for the first time in 20 years to sell the family house. He reflects on what he’s lost and what he’s learned.
It’s potentially touching stuff. But while songs by lyricist Carole Hall (“The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”) and music by Larry Grossman (“Minnie’s Boys”) are pleasant enough, they’re seldom moving. It doesn’t help that Ripley, a Tony winner for “Next to Normal,” is too young and spry to play Sook. Worse, she and Spagnuolo have weak chemistry.
And the devil is in the details. Why is the actor who plays “confirmed bachelor” Seabon wearing a wedding ring? If the cast and director Charlotte Moore don’t heed the details, why should audience pay attention?
Videodramas.blogspot.com
