Theater, Moss Hart wrote pointedly 57 years ago, is not so much a profession as a disease.
When audiences heard that scathing bit of wit in 1948, they probably laughed in the same manner they did at a recent Creede Repertory Theatre performance of Moss’ black satire “Light Up the Sky”: An initial guffaw turned nervous chuckle turned awkward silence. That’s funny. Wait, that’s not funny. That’s true.
Hart is best known for the classic period comedies “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and “You Can’t Take It With You,” as well as the books to “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot.” But he also had a lifelong fascination with behavioral psychology, and his neglected gem “Light Up the Sky” could be considered a textbook on bad behavior in the theater.
By 1948, Moss was a 22-year veteran of the New York wars, his experiences leaving scars as deep if not as visible as clawing fingernails. “Light Up the Sky” is peppered with very funny Coward-esque lines (“If you ever want to get even with a producer, talk him into doing an Ibsen revival”).
But it remains a surprisingly complex – and accurate – treatise on how easily a bold, creative vision can be sabotaged by ego and lack of fortitude. As a scathing indictment of the plastic rottenness pervading the industry on both sides of the footlights, this play can be seen as a wicked precursor to David Rabe’s “Hurlyburly” and David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow.” With more laughs.
Our moral center is playwright Peter Sloan (a remarkably measured John Keabler, who recalls a dashing young Jimmy Stewart). His experimental play “The Time Is Now” is hours away from its pre-Broadway opening in Boston. All we ever learn about this inscrutable play is that a bomb has gone off at Radio City Music Hall and dazed survivors are wandering the streets. This is an uncomfortably apocalyptic vision for New York three years after World War II’s end and six decades before Sept. 11.
The play’s star Irene (Kate Berry), its weepy director Carleton (Martin Buchanan) and oily producer Sidney (Michael Todd Behrens) toast Peter and what they are certain will be an inevitable hit.
But after the performance, the principals and other hangers-on gather in the unison presumption that the play has failed miserably. They roast it for its seriousness and denseness, when in truth they are too insipid to understand it. Rather than lick their wounds, these callow, shallow fools turn on one another. “They’ve committed the greatest sin in theater,” one says, “they’ve created an allegory!”
The brilliant twist comes in the final act (spoiler ahead). In a reversal that may well have later influenced Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” word comes that the critics have loved Peter’s strange play. Instantly they go back to fawning over one another, toasting this as their finest hour, when it clearly is not. By now the honorable playwright is fleeing the city as if it were Armageddon.
“Light up the Sky” is at times quite funny, never more so than when we learn Irene’s husband (Logan Ernstthal) has skipped the opening altogether for a lighter production of “Oklahoma!” across town. Director Maurice LaMee’s 13-member cast delivers a plethora of precise characterizations, with dazzling period costumes by Georgianna Londre and a smart scenic design by John Paul.
But LaMee has not taken the easy route, which would have been playing up the comedy as if the piece were meant to be a slapstick comic valentine. By emphasizing its darker emotional substance, the play becomes a perfect bookend to the outrageous showbiz farce “Noises Off,” one of three other plays being performed concurrently by this great professional theater company nestled in a glorious former mining mecca five hours southwest of Denver.
One footnote: Hart himself was once guilty of the same sin of precipitous artistic condemnation that his characters are here. In 1948, just weeks before “Light Up the Sky” would open on Broadway, Hart attended a dress rehearsal of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate” and famously proclaimed it a flop.
Nobody’s perfect.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Light Up the Sky”
***
BLACK COMEDY|Creede Repertory Theatre, 124 N. Main St., Creede|Written by Moss Hart|Directed by Maurice LaMee|Starring Kate Berry, Michael Todd Behrens, John Keabler, Martin Buchanan and Peggy Pharr Wilson|THROUGH AUG. 24|Showtimes vary with other plays|2 hours, 30 minutes|$15-$19|719-658-2540, 866-658-2540, or creederep.org
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COLORADO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL The 48th season opens tonight under the stars with “Twelfth Night” at the Mary Rippon Theatre, and “The Winter’s Tale” joining in repertory Sunday. “Othello,” presented indoors, kicks off July 8. Outdoor performances begin at 8:30 p.m.; indoors at 2, 7 and 11 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays through Aug. 13 at CU-Boulder. Tickets $10-$50 (303-492-0554 or coloradoshakes.org).
“ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN” The Aurora Fox brings back one of its biggest hits, based on Robert Fulghum’s best-selling books. 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through July 31 at 9900 E. Colfax Ave. $18-$20 (303-739-1970).
“ROUNDING THIRD” Little Theatre of the Rockies presents this baseball dramedy. In rotating rep with the lighter “Bleacher Bums” through July 23 at the Norton Theatre on the University of Northern Colorado campus. Tickets $7-$16 (970-351-4849).
-John Moore
