Musical Appeals to Boomers and Beyond
By Christine Dolen, The Miami Herald
Jul. 14–Each summer, Actors’ Playhouse bridges the past season and the new one with what its artistic team hopes will be a sparkling musical revue.
But such summertime treasures are hard to find, which is why artistic director David Arisco has gone to the well more than once with shows like I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and Tomfoolery.
This year, though, Arisco has mounted a real gem — Mid Life! The Crisis Musical. (I know. The title is lame. But that’s virtually the only true flaw in the show or this production.)
Created by brothers Bob Walton and Jim Walton, Mid Life! is for baby boomers what I Love You, You’re Perfect is for those trying to traverse the minefields of love to build lasting relationships: a resonant, funny, entertaining examination of oh-so-common experiences.
With both wit and affection, the Walton brothers take on everything from tolling biological clocks to menopausal madness; from couples who would kill (almost literally) to be empty nesters to adults watching their aged parents slip away mentally. The show’s balance of hilarity (loads of it) and poignant truth (mixed in judiciously) is just right.
Having chosen the perfect revue, Arisco then made a second savvy move: He got the perfect cast. What Margot Moreland, Lourelene Snedeker, Maribeth Graham, Barry J. Tarallo, Allan Baker and Wayne Steadman bring to the upstairs Balcony Theater stage are powerhouse voices, terrific comedic timing and the kind of seasoning that only their many collective years of performing experience can bring. Along with musical director/pianist David Nagy, collectively and individually, this bunch shines.
If you’re of a certain age (say 40 to 60), the preoccupations, joys and travails of the Mid Life! songs and vignettes will make you smile with recognition, howl with laughter or get a little teary.
The enduring affection Snedeker conveys for her flawed hubby — whom she can see much more clearly post-Lasik surgery — is honestly moving. Playing a bickering married couple, Tarallo and Graham get their words “translated” by Baker as a kind of marital game show host and Moreland as a gal who gets the meaning behind menopausal bawling. The guys play aching weekend warriors tethered to their wives via cellphone. The gals turn into divorcees who savor the stories of just how they shed their mates.
The cast spoofs memory loss (in a song titled What Did I Come in Here For?), the necessary but way uncomfortable experience of getting mammograms or prostate exams, the paralyzing warnings of medications’ potential side effects, a face-freezing fountain of “youth” delivered via syringe.
If you’re not in the show’s demographic, fret not. Even my 17-year-old son appreciated the laughs and insight into his decrepit boomer parents that Mid Life! The Crisis Musical provides.
Still hate the title. But love the show.
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