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The Rice Thresher
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Elizabeth Jardina thresher editorial staff Sweet Charity is just that - sweet. But to say that Hanszen College's fall musical is a great show would be charity. The cast and the audience seemed to have a good time with it anyway. The musical chronicles the life of Charity Hope Valentine (Will Rice College sophomore Hallie Antweil) and her misadventures in love, beginning with her relationship with Charlie (Hanszen junior Jared Singer), a married man who pushes her in the lake and steals her purse in the first scene. Hey, sometimes these things happen to a girl. Charity, ever buoyant, shrugs the whole thing off. She returns to her place of work, the Fandango Ballroom, the type of place where men can buy a dance with a pretty girl for $6.50 per half an hour. The other dance hall hostesses listen to her story about being thrown in the lake, decry the state of men today and moan about the hopelessness of their occupation. Then they go out to peddle their "wares" (so to speak) in "Big Spender," one of the many dance numbers. The women, dressed in matching short red satin dresses with sparkly bodices, use the song to seduce a customer (recently married Hanszen Resident Associate Lucky Sahualla). The choreography is stiff, and the women look uncomfortable. It sounds a harsher criticism than it is - they're all attractive, lively people, but they just don't look like hookers. (In the grand scheme of life, this isn't so bad. Their mothers will be proud.) Charity wanders out of the club, searching for a new life and, of course, a man. Instead, she meets a bunch of panhandlers, each claiming to be collecting money for a good cause. Our heroine, as usual, is too kind to let them go empty-handed. But fate doesn't let her down! The next few scenes are devoted to a subplot in which Charity meets international star Vittorio Vidal (played with gusto by Hanszen junior Mark Barrett last weekend - this weekend the part will be played by Hanszen freshman Amit Patel). Vidal uses Charity to make his girlfriend Ursula jealous. Barrett as Vidal and Lovett College junior Lauren Farr as Ursula are a wonderful pair, except for the tiniest trace of a fake British accent that goes flitting between them. Farr takes the stage intensely, and Barrett blusters appropriately. This vignette, while not connected to the rest of play in any way I can discern, allows for two of its best scenes. Both choreographer Eileen O'Brien, a Lovett sophomore, and costume designer Becky Foley, a Lovett junior, clearly had fun with "The Rich Man's Frug," the dance in the club where Vidal and Charity go to dinner. The scene is entertainingly and self-consciously like those strange dance interludes in the Austin Powers movies. The costumes, geometric black and white prints, are equally groovy. Then, after Vidal takes Charity back to his apartment, she sings "If My Friends Could See Me Now." (Yes, it's the Carnival Cruise Lines theme song, sung ever so petulantly by our friend Kathie Lee Gifford). In this number, Antweil is at her most confident and comfortable. Her soprano is clear, and the lyrics are pleasingly intelligible, sometimes a problem in college theater. Her dancing is adorable and enthusiastic, and the effective lighting allows her to really take the stage. After this engaging sequence, the show begins to meander a little. Throughout, ever-hopeful Charity and her hostess friends sing about the hardships of being "stuck in the flypaper of life," as Helene (Hanszen junior Daniella Muallem) puts it. Helene and Nickie (charmingly played by Baker freshman Hayley Brown) sing a really lovely duet in Act II, "Baby Dream Your Dream," as they wish Charity the best in her pursuit of Oscar (Will Rice junior Phil Mayor). Antweil is the heart of this show. She plays the difficult role of Charity with verve, although she's a little childlike to play someone who may or may not be a prostitute. (She's not, by the way.) Mayor, who has done some really good work in other college shows, seems distracted. Oscar is supposed to be both creepy and charming but ends up merely being vague. Charity and her prospective suitors are backed by a small but happy cast playing a dizzying number of roles, some of them involving quick, complicated costume changes. In fact, Charity is the only cast member who doesn't have multiple roles. Technically, Sweet Charity has disappointing aspects, particularly the lighting. The seedy Fandango Ballroom was lit the same as the afternoon in the park. The ballroom, especially during dance sequences like "Big Spender," which are intended to be sexy, could have used some mood lighting. The worst technical part of the show is in the usage of slides to set the scene and occasionally narrate (e.g. "The First Kiss"). They were pointed too high and disastrously faded in and out of focus, either intentionally or unintentionally - I couldn't tell which. The orchestra, on the other hand, is delightful, conducted by Hanszen Associate Tom Bisciglia (Wiess '98). It is small (drums, bass, piano, flute, clarinet, sax), quite good and mostly unnoticeable, as an orchestra should be. The two major problems with the musical are both substantial. The first is that the three full-scale musicals being produced this semester have strained the rather shallow Rice acting pool, and support of theater by Hanszen residents has been dwindling over the past few years. Hanszen Theatre chair, vocal director and producer Andrea Lubawy and director/producer Laura Duke (Baker '98) put this show together mostly out of their hard work and energy. The second is the show itself. It's dated - the spunky Mary Tyler Moore type no longer strikes a chord with women. Sweet Charity was first mounted on Broadway in 1966 by legendary choreographer and director Bob Fosse. It seems like there are a lot of extraneous dance sequences in the show because there are. In 1966, Fosse was the hottest name on Broadway, so having many dance interludes - like the incoherent sequence in the hippie "church" - made sense. They let Fosse show off his talents. O'Brien, though she means well, is no Fosse, making the dancing seem excessive. Also, the role of Charity was created for Gwen Verdon, Fosse's wife and the woman The New York Times called in her Oct. 19 obituary "the best dancer ever to brighten the Broadway stage." Those are big shoes for Antweil to fill. Hanszen has attempted a difficult show with meager resources, and the result is spotty. However, despite the technical problems and the sparse cast, the show is smooth enough to be a pleasant, if not life-changing, two and a half hours.
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