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At the very end of a New York theatrical season that has been self-admittedly dismal at the least, it is truly both shocking and pitiful that Bob Andron's comedically-wondrous play, White's Lies, has been closed with seemingly no warning after promising to remain into July at the earliest. The script infused a true breath of fresh air into the New World Stages (340 West 50th Street, a multi-box complex which also houses Avenue Q and Naked Boys Singing) and not only brought such long-missed actors as Tuc Watkins and Peter Scolari back to the New York scene, but provided a dynamite showcase in which the legendary Betty Buckley was permitted to strut her stuff without singing a note and prove her depth as a non-musical thespian.
Again, that this show has officially joined the ranks of theatre history alongside many other equally-notable productions of the season unable to enjoy same by audiences, is downright regrettable, and one can only hold out fervent hope for a revival of equal (if not greater) stature for the near future, hopefully with the original cast as well as Bob Cline at the directorial helm.
The aforementioned Watkins gorgeously embodies the title role of attorney Joe White, an ultimate womanizer and pathological liar whose odious and oily qualities even surpass Harrison Ford in the film Regarding Henry, or Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar. Faced with the imminent cancerous death of his estranged mother (Buckley) and her dying wish for a grandchild, White quickly concocts a scheme into which his former paramour Barbara (portrayed by Andrea Grano) and her adult daughter Michelle (the splendiferous Christy Carlson Romano) are sucked, in an effort to make Mrs. White believe that she has in fact been an unwitting grandmother lo these many years. Along the highways and byways of this journey, Joe's law partner Alan (Scolari) finds his love match in Barbara, largely based on their mutual admiration for classic television, Joe and Michelle launch into the hottest affair this side of the Supreme Court, and by the end of the play we find out that Joe's apple hasn't fallen particularly far from the tree regarding his abilities for deception. The keynote of this ensemble simply has to be the word "commitment," for each are acting their roles to the hilt. And it should be noted that both Jimmy Ray Bennett and Rena Strober may well have the hardest jobs of the entire shootin' match, because each are put upon to breathe life into a variety of roles, with a fervor that makes one's head spin as to how they accomplish this so brilliantly.
Though the show has been stifled for now, it was a very fortunate audience who gathered on the evening of June 9th for a question-and-answer period with the cast after final curtain. Producer Jeremy Handelman provided moderation for the discussion, and everything that could have been covered, from the embodiment of the roles to the actors's footwear, but a number of questions did stand out. One spectator asked how they knew that it was working in rehearsal (having had less than three weeks to get in shape for opening night), to which Buckley replied, "It's that we had a playwright and director who were both really open to our input." Watkins added, "It just all sort of clicks together after a fashion," and Grano summed up by saying, "A lot of us hadn't really done comedy before on this scale, so it was a nice adventure and I think we all had fun. I know I did." Another big query was how much the script allowed for improvisation during the short rehearsal period, to which Scolari answered, "We improvised a lot during that time, and luckily for all of us, both Jimmy Ray and Rena happen to be very good improv actors, so a lot of wonderful things came out of that." And one audience member from India, an unnamed actress who stars in films in Bollywood, asked if any of them found work on stage to be more difficult than work on the big or small screen, to which Romano blithely replied to sizable laughter, "I just like getting paid."
White's Lies may be on an involuntary hiatus for the moment, but its large cluster of fans will be waiting for the day when it might make a new bow on or Off-Broadway. In the meantime, this humble writer couldn't possibly feel more fortunate to have drunk in the brilliance of the play, and surely hopes that others will one day have a similar opportunity.
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