What happens when the Boardroom
meets the Greenroom? - Corporate America crosses lanes with Broadway? - this is the conceit that drives The Solid Gold
Cadillac, the 1950s comedy of Howard Teichmann and George S. Kaufman now playing at the Studio Theatre (to 1/10). Directed
by Paul Mullins, this lighthearted fare for the holidays showcases the considerable talents of comedienne Nancy Robinette
and a mostly veteran cast which surrounds her - the butt of her frequent and offbeat humor.
Featuring the disembodied
narrative voice of Robert Aubrey Davis, who introduces the play's many scenes as a takeoff on a fairy tale, it is a sort
of Cinderella meets Goldilocks and the Three Bears meets the Big Bad Wolves. If this very fractured fairy tale were
a metaphor, it would be a mixed one.
The set up is simple: the president of a conglomerate (sounding like GM),
Edward McKeever (Michael Goodwin) is called to Washington to serve in what seems to be a cabinet-level position. In his absence
his minions stage an in-house takeover led by T. John Blessington (David Sabin), Alfred Metcalfe (James Slaughter), and Clifford
Snell (Paul Nolan); everyone except milk-sop yes-man Warren Gillie (Leo Erickson) looks to move up a rung on the corporate
ladder, doubling his salary in the process. It all seems like a slam dunk at a pro forma stockholder's meeting until
a zany, small shareholder (and out-of-work actress) Laura Partridge (Nancy Robinette) arrives from the audience to pose the
very inconvenient question: what do these guys do to justify their absurdly high salaries?
No one has an answer so
she's co-opted by the company, given a job and a secretary (Laura Dunlop) and a job description that calls for satisfying
small shareholders like herself. Does she ever! Along the way Ms. Partridge will pick up an additional project
of prying government contracts out of the suddenly principled Mr. McKeever, who has uncharacteristically shut the door on
his old pals. The adaptable actress shifts to director then recalibrates her performance as femme fatale as the first
act winds down. Act II serves as battlefield in the media, courts, and private offices as the now aligned former actress
and former president jockey for power with the gang of four.
Mr. Mullins production
proceeds fitfully, at times played as subtle farce, at others as comic noir, drawing the laughs in stand-up character moments
while stalling at points, usually in advancing the plot. Ms. Robinette, in a role she clearly enjoys, is non-stop hilarity
- mugging, probing, and posturing throughout; Mr. Sabin drolly draws himself up to deliver one pretentious salvo after another
- he has a lot of company activities under the wraps including a "model" played by Chelsey Christensen with Betty
Boop singularity; and a delightfully coiled Paul Nolan strikes on a moment's notice with poisonous verbal venom.
But the storyline tends to have a lot of dramatic lane slowdowns which the antics of the characters cannot jumpstart. Erik
Trester's sound and video, using several local media personalities, has some success, as do the frequent appearances of
the ensemble from the back of the house.
The somber, serviceable rotating set of James Kronzer with a maroon, silver,
and brown palette, and tight quarters of the black box space of the Metheny Theatre make it hard to buy into a farce and difficult
for the actors to gain any traction - emotional or physical. When we move from one scene to the next, the same colored
and constricted set arrangement more or less persists, though they are adequately lighted by Mark Lanks. While there
are no absolutes, I think for farce to work you need bright hues and plenty of room for movement to go with the sight gags
and requisite doors slamming. Costumer Alex Jaeger gives Ms. Robinette and the ladies a lot of pizzazz, but it's
hard to get into a farcical mood with the men in brown flannel suits.
Though
the rudiments of the story and characters are timeless and universal, the audiences then and now are vastly different. The
audience is still very much part of the equation, and invested in the outcome, but the landscape has changed in the intervening
years. Back in the 50s, during the Eisenhower administration, the stuffed shirts of business and windbag politicos,
not to mention pretentions of the theater and media, were riper for a send-up. (The bubble of "What's good
for GM [or big business] is good for the country" was ready for popping.) But the bad guys are wilier now, less bumptious,
and the corporate greed and shenanigans less fictional and more diffuse: in our 24/7 culture they are everywhere and they
are us. And the party in power does not present the delectable target (at least for the moment) that it did back then.
Still, while you'll feel something's missing from time to time, the laughs arrive regularly enough to energize
the show. And just like a fairy tale there's a happy ending in store for us all, one arriving via the post and in
great numbers. Ms. Robinette's loose cannon of a character collects herself at the end to take care of business;
and gets in the last word, gaveling down another gadfly emerging from the crowd. The more things change ...
It
would be interesting for future productions to have the play set contemporaneously, say with a younger set of computer company
executives or have those roles played by women and cast the disgruntled shareholder as "Larry." There's
still a lot of subtext left to measure under the hood of this Gold Caddy.
Sound check: Excellent
Program
notes: Very good with dramaturg notes and photos and comments from other collaborative productions of the time. Might
have benefited from the director's take on the current show
Applause meter: Recommended, 3+ hands
Runtime:
1 hour and 50 minutes with an intermission
Photo credit: Scott Suchman
