Review by Neal Newman
May 31, 2024
MOON OVER BUFFALO is being given a nearly flawless farce production. The design, direction, and cast achieve the madcap mania farce demands, which is not easy to do and sustain for two hours. The Candlelight Dinner Theatre’s production is so well done that one hardly notices the faults in Ken Ludwig’s play. You are too busy laughing.
George and Charlotte are two married has-been actors. They are a sort of Buffalo, New York version of Lunt/Fontanne, who fondly remember their minor careers starring in second-rate monster movies. The couple has never had the opportunity to prove themselves and are now, in 1953, trapped in this upstate tank town, performing PRIVATE LIVES and a 6-character version of CYRANO. The farce action ignites when they are contacted by famed director Frank Capra as possible film replacements for Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson.
Farce is filled with misunderstanding, mistaken identity, and robust physical action, usually involving carefully timed entrances through the many doors of the setting. The actors succeed admirably under the powerful direction of Jessica Bostock. Charlotte (Heather Plank) doesn’t imitate Carol Burnett, who famously created the role, but finds her own daffiness, especially when berating her husband George (Steve Connor} for his affair with a young actress (Molly Hofstaedter). Plank admirably executes the double take caused by her mistaking a TV weatherman (William McHattie) for the famed director. As the husband, Steve Connor is given much of the physical action, which he handles easily. He is also convincing as a ham classical actor though not as a possible replacement for Ronald Coleman. He spends most of the second act amusingly drunk, which must have been much funnier when the play premiered in 1994 than it is today. Neena Boyle, as their daughter Roz, who hated the theater life, has a smashing moment when she is forced to perform the opening scene of PRIVATE LIVES by herself when the indisposed father fails to appear. Jared Calhoun and Paul Weagraff are fine farceurs as suitors to Roz and Charlotte.
The curtain call elicited the loudest cheers for Susan Giddings as Ethel, the nearly deaf mother of Charlotte. She has a thrilling baritone voice, which she quietly uses to rain scorn upon the others. Her quiet brilliance balances the craziness beautifully. The entire company performs as a well-timed machine, as it should.
The evening is completed by the colorful set by Matthew J. Kator (all those posters and doors), the multi-era costumes of Donyl, the clear farce lighting by Max Redman, and the period wigs by Clayton Stacey.
Ken Ludwig is a skilled builder of the farce machine, and is an enormously successful playwright with amateur groups. His farces frequently feature gentle satires of theater, opera, and film. But remember, this is a “boulevard comedie”, not a genuine classic like THE ROYAL FAMILY or SLINGS AND ARROWS, which admittedly are not farces but character comedies. However, if you hunger for a professional evening of theater with a fine dinner, you will be amply rewarded.
RUNNING TIME: Two hours, including intermission.
MOON OVER BUFFALO runs through June 16 at The Candlelight Dinner Theatre, 2208 Millers Rd, Wilmington, DE. Tickets can be obtained at boxofficecandlelightde.org or by calling 302 475 2313.