Theater Review—

A Tribute To Show Business, Complete With Laughs, At Ridgefield Theatre Barn

By Julie Stern

RIDGEFIELD — Ridgefield Theater Barn is currently staging Moss Hart’s tribute to show business, Light Up the Sky.

Created by the playwright who was the Neal Simon of a previous generation, most famous for comedies like You Can’t Take It With You and The Man Who Came to Dinner, this particular play is not hilariously funny. Driven by character rather than plot contrivances or outlandish eccentricities, it deals with the tensions, hopes and aspirations connected to a young playwright’s first play as it is about to open in Boston as part of its out-of-town trial run.

Peter Sloan, the hero, is an idealistic young man who has spent the last two years working at menial jobs so that he could spend his nights writing the play filled with the great truths and insights of life. Now, on the eve of its production, he is ebullient with hope and faith in the goodness of the people who are helping to make this happen.

Sidney Black is the producer who took a chance and put up the $300,000 to pay for the show, Carleton Fitzgerald, the flamboyant director, and Irene Livingston, the spoiled and cosseted star.

Set in Miss Livingston’s hotel suite in Boston’s Ritz Carlton, the play filters these outsized egos through the more sardonic vision of a quartet of other characters who are there for the opening: Miss Lowell, the ghost writer of Irene Livingston’s autobiography; Stella Livingston, Irene’s wisecracking mother; Owen Turner, a more experienced and calloused playwright; and Frances Black, Sydney’s Ice Capades queen-wife.

Frances and Stella have seen the play and feel sure that it will turn out to be a bomb. This seems borne out by the reaction of the opening night audience – a collection of drunken Shriners who laugh at the wrong parts and walk out before it is finished.

Where Miss Lowell and Owen Turner try to comfort the stricken Peter with reassurances that his ambitions are fine and his play has potential, Sydney is furious at the prospect of losing his money. Peter is devastated, and heads for the airport and life as a truckdriver.

Since this is basically a comedy, you can expect that things will work out better than it seems.

There is some excellent acting here, especially by Louise Kaminer as Stella, and Will Jeffries as Owen Turner, who delivers some caustically funny observations.

Fred Tisch does a strong job as Sydney, looking and sounding a lot like Judd Hirsch – who would certainly be appropriate as a role model for the part. John Pyron is a bit over the top as Carleton Fitzgerald (but then that is the nature of the egotistical beast).

Carin Freidag overdoes the Brooklynese in the part of Frances, especially as it comes off as a rather inauthentic mix of Boston and Brooklyn, but she is perky and charming. Marie Rowe is long suffering and patient as Miss Lowell, and Chris Van Jura is sturdily stubborn, as young Peter.

It’s a pleasant evening at the bring-your-own dinner theater, especially if you like American plays of the Thirties and Forties.

(Performances continue weekends through September 25, on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 and Sunday afternoons at 2. Doors open one hour before the show, and the audience is invited to bring its own food and beverages.

The theater barn, at 37 Halpin Lane in Ridgefield, can be contacted at 203-431-9850.)