Richly comic ‘Ballyhoo’ opens

Tom Titus

Alfred Uhry may not our most prolific playwright, but he’s become one

of our most noteworthy. He wrote his first play, “Driving Miss

Daisy,” at the age of 48 -- and won the Pulitzer Prize for it. Now

this relative newcomer to his craft is the only “triple crown”

playwright -- holder of the Pulitzer, an Oscar (for the screenplay of

“Daisy”) and a Tony award.

The latter honor came for his second play, “The Last Night of

Ballyhoo,” which South Coast Repertory has chosen to inaugurate what

the company bills as its 40th season (39th locally). It’s a

handsomely mounted treatment of Jewish life in the Atlanta of 1939,

where the biggest news of the moment is the premiere of the movie

“Gone With the Wind.”

“Ballyhoo,” it must be explained, is a social whirl for young

Jewish singles culminating in a formal dance. In Uhry’s Freitag

household, it represents the last chance for Lala -- who dropped out

of college and is back living at home -- to find a suitable mate.

This romantic comedy veers off in two directions -- Lala’s (and

her sourpuss mother Boo’s) quest for a match and a similar campaign

waged by Boo’s more temperate sister Reba and her equally pleasant

daughter, appropriately called Sunny. Overseeing the often-ludicrous

proceedings is the widowed sisters’ lifelong bachelor brother Adolph,

a successful mattress manufacturer, in whose luxurious home the

ladies reside.

SCR, and director Warner Shook, have summoned three of the

company’s highest caliber talents for the adult roles. Richard Doyle

excels in the low-key, but high-laugh quotient, character of the

imperturbable Adolph, whose well-timed one-liners puncture the

familial tension repeatedly.

Kandis Chappell lends strength and determination to the icy Boo, a

sort of comic version of “The Glass Menagerie’s” Amanda Wingfield

(which she must play someday) minus the latter’s fluttery reminisces.

Her opposite-number sister Reba is delightfully interpreted by Linda

Gehringer in a performance oozing with sweetness, light and a

charming naivete.

The rebellious (for that period) Lala -- an incurable romantic who

swipes a “GWTW” publicity photo from the theater lobby -- is well

played by Blair Sams, whose Scarlett-like exit at the close of Act

One prompts a musical crescendo of the movie’s theme. Her sunnier

cousin , who’s inherited her mother’s charm but possesses her own

spunk, is nicely rendered by Debra Funkhouser.

Nathan Baesel strongly enacts a young executive in Adolph’s

company who sets his cap for Sunny, but whose intramural prejudice

regarding the “other kind” of Jews threatens his romance. Lala’s

imported beau, a flame-haired irritant named Peachy, is depicted by

Guilford Adams in the play’s only gesture of blatant comedy.

Most of the comic drama is played out in the spacious,

well-detailed interior setting created by Michael Olich. Frances

Kenny’s costumes underscore the late-’30s period nicely, and the

lighting of Tom Ruzika couldn’t be sharper.

“The Last Night of Ballyhoo” at SCR is a most enjoyable production

-- even if Uhry does submit to the traditional “breakup/makeup” plot

device late in the proceedings and the announced engagement is a bit

out of left field. Strong performances overcome these drawbacks with

the determination of, well, Scarlett O’Hara.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.