For the Brady Kids it’s a beautiful morning and it’s gonna be a beautiful day.  And why not?  It’s 1974, they’re movin’ and groovin’ all through the night, and The Partridge Family is getting hot under the collar as the Bradys tread on their turf — a sure sign that they’re worthy competitors.  But in seventies sitcom land one does not simply unseat the royals.  Tracy Partridge, get your triangle … there’s gonna be a musical throw down.

Brady Kids of THE BARDY BUNCH [photo by Katie Settel]

Welcome to The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady, and if you’ve been here before – welcome back!  In 2011 playwright Stephen Garvey showed Fringe audiences what happens when you take a little bit of The Brady Bunch canon, A little bit of The Partridge Family canon, and handfuls from the Shakespeare buffet and shake them all up together.  The result is one giant molded-salad of puns, quotes and interlocking story lines all set against a vivid avocado and burnt orange background.   “This is one show I wish I could go back and see again,” I’d said in my 2011 Fringe review and now, thanks to the good sense of the theatre gods, my wish came true.

In the hands of Garvey The Bardy Bunch is musical comedy genius, and watching this reboot now playing at the Theatre at St. Clements was like settling in to watch a re-run of a beloved show. There was a rush of familiarity coupled with a tingle of expectation at what I’d remember.  I was also excited to see some new scenes added in that only made the show better.

Choreographer Lorna Ventura once again sets up the show with a powerhouse number of both nostalgic and new moves.  Ventura faithfully recreates the Bradys’ iconic twirls as they fly down the road in their makeshift Model T A – so familiar that you are doing the moves along side them in your head. But then quick as a wink the Partridge kids bear down and Ventura swirls the warring kids up in a West-Side-Story rumble that ignited the audience and set the pace for the entire night.

From here on in it’s Brady verses Partridge at every turn with shades of Macbeth, Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet ringing the big bells with a few other Shakespearean references tinkling throughout.  You’ll be tickled regardless of  how extensive your knowledge of the Bard’s body of work.  And rest assured, in case you miss a reference there’s bound to be a show-off  in the audience ready to point it out by laughing loudly at an allusion you might have missed.  That’s okay – there’s plenty of fun to go around and everyone’s there to have a good time.

Director Jay Stern (who also directed Bardy at Fringe 2011)  knows the material well – pulling just the right moments of silliness and fun to warm the fans of the corny TV shows while still understanding when to control the effect of the Shakespearean references in order to have them hit their mark. Stern’s balanced hand ensures that Bardy is a delicate melange rather than a chaotic jumble – something that easily could have happened in the hands of a less perceptive director.  This is most evident when Stern succeeds in making a brutal bloodbath work as it plays out behind a crooning love song – no small feat, but just what the Bard ordered.

The cast is effervescent and fresh – despite simultaneously being spot-on in their retro interpretation.  Shag haircuts and far-out clothes can’t disguise the dynamic exuberance they bring to every number.  With several alums from the original Fringe cast it’s obvious that this show is as fun to perform as it is to watch.  All involved – from Brady Kids to Partridge Family and even Rubin and Alice come together in big numbers like the showstopping “(You’ve Got The)Sunshine In Your Hands/Think I’ll Go For A Walk Outside” arranged by musical director Logan Medland.  Moments like this one – and there were many – had the audience clapping along exuberantly and whooping at the end of the number.

Partridge Kids of THE BARDY BUNCH [photo by Katie Settel]

The entire show is written with a wink to the audience, both a love letter to the shows of childhood as well as a lampooning of the hackneyed, rehashed plots favored by both shows.  But as the Bard himself said in “As You Like It”  - ”I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it”.   Corny?  Yes.  Sappy?  Definitely.  But we like that mid-century modern place that Mr. Brady designed.  We like that Mondrian-painted bus that Mrs. Partridge drove around.  We willingly waste our time in the corridor of 1970s land where Marcia is lovely, Keith Partridge is dreamy, and everything is groovy on a daily basis.  If you didn’t have the chance to spend some time with this bunch a few years ago … now is the time to catch it and willingly waste some time of your own.  You’ll be glad  you did.

~~~

The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady

Written by Stephen Garvey
Directed by Jay Stern

March 20-April 13, 2014

Theatre at St. Clements
423 West 46th Street
New York, NY 10036

CLICK HERE for tickets

Related Posts:

• The Bardy Bunch: The War Of The Families Partridge And Brady (Fringe Festival 2011)
• It’s A Sunshine Day For Stephen Garvey, Writer Of “The Bardy Bunch”
• Macbeth, Aquila Theatre; Macbeth, Epic Theatre Ensemble
• The Knocking Within: 4 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (Times Square International Theater Festival 2012)
• Something Wicked (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

The first thing you can’t fail to notice upon entering the performance space for Empirical Rogue‘s production of Romeo and Juliet, is the spectacular environment chashama have provided for the company. Formerly a taxi service garage on Jackson Avenue, LIC, the space retains the character of its previous functionalism, but the translation of the environment for its theatrical purpose is all but awe inspiring. This is immersive theatre space at its most captivating. Three very simple arrangements of double rowed seats place the audience right at the edge of the action. Behind them floor to ceiling drapes of canvas enclose the space and focus attention on one corner of the performance area, where a raised office hutch serves as the play’s famous balcony setting. The raw cinder block walls are spectrally painted with fading murals and decorative effects that describe location and contribute atmosphere almost slyly – “Verona” the largest declares boldly, like some pageant-styled vermouth advertisement of the Forties. A raw building scaffold sits easily in the space, spotlights glow in constellation behind canvas walls, and a wide grill metal gate recalls you to the actuality of the location. Before the drama has begun you want to take your hat off to production designer, Dante Olivia Smith, muralist, Adam Fujita, and producer/director, Tim Eliot.  This is one of the most intelligent and graceful set designs I have come across.

Susannah Hoffman and Doug Chapman.

And very happily, all of its cleverness and lightness of touch is nimbly echoed in the performance that follows of Shakespeare’s most famous story of  the tragic, young, star-crossed lovers. Eliot has honed down the play to use just four actors, each necessarily playing several roles. The choreographing of characters to scenes requires rapid-fire role changes, asking both performers and audience to stay alert and keep their wits in order to follow the action. Rudimentary costume changes are effected in seconds behind the scenes, and on this first night of performance all ran effectively as actors disappeared through narrow gaps in the scenery to emerge moments later in alternate character from another partition. Timing is precise and impressive. Having the same actors portray different genders and different generations is engrossing to watch, but also throws into relief contrasts in the story’s culturally imposed roles and restrictions. Jacob Martin takes both the role of the impassioned and reckless Romeo, as well as that of the socially constrained and conservative Lady Capulet, Juliet’s mother. All of the actors can be commended on the stamina which they bring to bear in sustaining the charged atmosphere, and it is a special note of success that I found myself, while watching the four actors in scene together, expectant of the arrival of yet another. The sense that another character was waiting in the wings was proof of the effectiveness of the illusion they were working so hard to create.

This is a physical production and swordplay (Shad Ramsey) is vigorous and convincing. Creating the sense of a factional melee can be understandably difficult with just four, sometimes three, actors at a time. Eliot’s direction is equal to the challenge and he gives us a delightful note of chaotic confrontation at one point, when a van pulls up outside the garage, headlights blazing, the gate rolls noisily upward, and sword-wielding actors rush in. The illusions of a masqued ball and of populated public space are similarly creatively suggested with a minimum of effects and participants.

If there is a villain in the production then it is undoubtedly the acoustics in this raw space. Intimate exchanges between characters can get lost and, as there is much active space in use, the same may be said when actors are turned away from the audience. As Romeo, Martin projects the most effectively, conjuring youthful vitality and a character who is touchingly over-taken by new passions and the will to be an honorable man. There were moments though when I wished he would modulate his delivery more; not everything the young lover says is an exclamation. Susannah Hoffman as Juliet gets it right, marrying the charge to the lines. This is a full throttle performance with great range, taking us from girlish excitement all the way to womanly anguish. Her Mercutio is equally impressive, startling even as she projects a complex braggart and hot head who seems to be masking a woundedness at Romeo’s attentions towards women. Sarah Baskin gets great play out of the Nurse, driven by sympathy to imprudence, she is all attentiveness and want of wisdom. To Doug Chapman fall the less meaty roles of Benvolio and Friar Laurence, well-intentioned voices of temperance, and he dithers and agonizes leanly. As an ensemble these actors come together most effectively and in moments of pitch, the language and acting engender a white hot intensity that melts your sense of time and place, all the poise and cleverness, any need of a suspension of disbelief. It’s powerful.

Fine touches abound. Live music is featured in the form of Becca Bernard, a solo cellist, sitting all-but-not-quite out of sight behind wooden pallets in one corner. The wardrobe (Summer Lee Jack) is a hybrid of contemporary wear and historical costume notes, lithely at play with a notion of dress-up and realism. In a similar vein, features of the scene-setting mural decoration archly confess to their own artificiality, their recently applied theatricality. But there is a lyricism amidst this self-consciousness. In the one instance when the space is plunged into complete darkness, a small, plastic night light that has been glowing unnoticed throughout the action, becomes the sole point of light. Keen-eyed observers might note it is a figure of the Virgin, the mother of all sorrows, herself a complex symbol of themes that underscore the drama. Utterly thoughtful, innovative, bold and tempered, Empirical Rogue and Tim Eliot have produced a memorable version of this much played Shakespearean favorite, itself the mother of all tragic romances. All one can say is Bravo! Bravo!

~~~

Related Posts:

• Something Wicked (2014 Frigid New York Festival)
• The Bardy Bunch – Keep On Singing And Dancing All Through The Night
• Petunia And Chicken (2014 Frigid New York Festival)
• Something Wicked: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Macbeth, Aquila Theatre; Macbeth, Epic Theatre Ensemble