Stageloft brings sharp ‘Sting’By Paul Kolas Telegram and Gazette Reviewer STURBRIDGE— It’s truly remarkable what Stageloft can do with such a diminutive stage. Take, for example, the stylish and panoramic production of “The Sting” which delightfully conned Saturday evening’s audience. Yes, we’re talking about a stage version of the 1973 Academy-Award winning film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, replete with Scott Joplin’s familiar syncopated music prefacing the show, and while it would be cruelly unfair to compare Patrick Lynch and Jeremy Woloksi to those movie star icons, they certainly invest the opportunistic shenanigans of Henry Gondroff and Johnny Hooker with their own brand of larcenous charm. Director Edward Cornely’s cleverly shifting set design, Josh Minor’s constantly transposing lighting, and Jamie Cloutier’s conjuring sound effects seem to amplify the stage, creating a shrewdly imagined tapestry of a 1930s Chicago teeming with numbers runners, racketeers, con men, corrupt detectives, grifters, and dance hall girls. For those of you who have no idea what “The Sting” is all about, Gondroff (Lynch) and Hooker (Woloski) are two con men who team up after a mutual friend, Luther, is murdered by a ruthless “businessman” named Doyle Lonnigan (played with bullying insolence by Neal Martel). They devise a way to swindle Lonnigan out of a considerable chunk of his piggy bank, and how they pull off this “big con” is the beauty of “The Sting’s” exquisitely complicated plot, first engineered by screenwriter David Ward, and ingeniously adapted here by David Rogers. Not to give anything away — are you kidding? — Gondroff and Hooker lure Lonnigan into a high stakes poker game on the 20th Century Limited train running between New York and Chicago, Lonnigan taking Hooker into his confidence, part of the ruse being that Gondroff and Hooker don’t know each other. From there, Lonnigan is enticed into a fixed horse race betting scheme taking place in a “wire room,” which is actually a theatrical set constructed by our con boys and their assorted devious cronies acting their assigned roles in the elaborate charade. The make believe races are broadcast in the “back room” by an “announcer” (spiritedly detailed by Todd Darling). In a wink of the eye, the Stageloft set is admirably converted into this specious environment. What gives the horse race scenes a feeling of real texture and verisimilitude is how the supporting cast seemingly provides improvised dialogue to the scripted text. It’s like watching and listening to the overlapping spontaneity of a Robert Altman film, and the effect is like being at a party. One aspect of the play that the movie doesn’t have is the inclusion of three characters in a “present day” context that weaves in and out of the main action taking place 30 years earlier. Although this added plot contrivance may seem cumbersome at times, it provides us with Bonnie Stockdale’s deliciously honed wit in the role of the storytelling Mrs. VanderKieft, as she recounts her memories to Cynthia Hastings (Catherine Jolicoeur), a writer in search of a best seller. Sam d’Entremont brings an amusingly measured stateliness to his part as Groves, Mrs. VanderKieft’s butler. Lynch’s boozy depiction of Gondroff feels like it belongs in 1930s Chicago, it’s that authentically defined in its Depression Era fortitude and calculation. Along with Stockdale, he takes acting honors. Woloski is quite good as Hooker, always likable and enjoyable to watch, and while he and Lynch pair well together, one wonders what this production would have been like if an actor with a slightly darker and more ambiguous persona had been cast as Hooker. That isn’t so much a quibble as a pondering. The unequivocal fact is there is so much fun in watching these two hatch their plan, and they’re surrounded by a colorful gallery of rogues. Besides Neal Martel’s burly and sneering Lonnigan, notable contributions are made by Frank Bartucca (Kid Twist), Harry Lupien (Combs), Cedric Flower (Luther/Man in Raincoat), Mark Bourdeau (Granger/Train Conductor), Mary Ann Joinville (Ivy Niles), Nicole Marchand (Fern/Lola/Ginger), Matt Daly (Erie), Robert C. Latino (Mottola), Jami Wilson (Rhoda/new waitress), Rich Dussault (Mr.Clayton/F.B.I. Agent Polk), Kit Randall (Curly Jackson), Cecile d’Entremont (Alva/Mrs. Richmond), Stacie Beland (Billie/owner of Dance Hall), Tina Dussault (Loretta/waitress), Peter Arsenault (Floyd), Erik Evan Johnsen (Snyder), and last but not least, Bryson Michael as Cigarette Girl. |