Chautauqua Wrapping up ‘Street Scene’
Published in the Post-Journal (Jamestown, NY)
August 14, 2008
By Robert W. Plyler
CHAUTAUQUA - There is hot music and even hotter passions on the stage of Norton Hall this week as Chautauqua Opera concludes its season with a production of Kurt Weill’s "Street Scene".
Weill wrote the hard, brassy, jazzy music, while Elmer Rice wrote the book and Langston Hughes wrote the lyrics. It’s hard to beat a trio such as that. The opera company has cast a generous sprinkling of wonderful voices, and a number of talented area actors to join with their fine young artists to tell the tale of lust, longing and murder on the streets of New York City during the depths of the Great Depression.
The action takes place on a city street during two hot summer days in 1932. The central characters are Frank Maurrant, a professional stagehand who beats his children, bullies his wife and builds and maintains a sense of danger to everyone he encounters.
Wife Anna has been loving and attentive to the whole family, but she has encountered a man who speaks gently to her and is thoughtful and kind, and she faces an almost overwhelming desire to have him in her life.
Daughter Rose works as a secretary in a real estate office. She deeply loves Sam Kaplan, a recent college graduate who aspires to go to law school, but neither her family nor his approves of the match and she believes that if Sam gives up his dreams for her, the day will come when she will be as miserable as her mother.
This central drama is surrounded by big city types who have brilliant moments, which make the production more than just the story of the Maurrants but truly the street scene of the title.
Special praise is due to Susan Nicely as Emma Jones, the neighborhood busybody whose husband is a drunk, whose son is a bully and whose daughter is a woman of quite easy virtue, and yet Mrs. Jones never lets anyone pass her throne on the front steps of the apartment building without telling them their faults while pointing out those of everyone in the vicinity.
There was an outstanding songs and dance number by Carolyn Amaradio and Jacob Lewis Smith as the Jones daughter and her "escort". Patrick Kelley-Alvarado has a fine number which serves as comic relief as the kindly Italian violinist who can’t resist the urge to treat everyone on the street to ice cream.
The outstanding singing voices belonged to Richard Bernstein as the threatening stage hand, Brenda Harris as his wife, Deborah Selig as their daughter, Eric Fennell as the Jewish boyfriend, George Dvorsky as the lecherous employer of the daughter and Peter Kazaras as the boyfriend’s father.
Strong dramatic assistance came from area acting talents, Christina Rausa, James Ivey and Tom Loughlin.
The star of the production was the startlingly realistic set by Steven Capone. Helen E. Rodgers’ costumes were spot on.
Jay Lesenger directed, and the production has the perfect little touches which made is so easy to believe, which we have come to expect from his work.
Jerome Shannon conducted the Chautauqua Opera Orchestra, which sounded wonderful in the complex, dramatic music. My only complaint about the entire production was that - partly due to the orchestra’s high volume - it often was impossible to make out the words being sung or spoken.
Still the production was deeply moving and completely involving. "Street Scene" was reviewed in dress rehearsal, at the request of the company. It will be performed Friday and Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Norton Hall, on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution.