Happy End
When sour milk is mixed with sugar and flavoring for distraction, served with affection, it might have a slightly sweet taste but, hey, it’s still sour milk. That clumsy metaphor explains kind of how I feel about the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht (English version by Michael Feingold) tale of surly, jaded Chicago gangsters who look condescendingly and suspiciously at society, religion, business, and even each other. The Ten Ten Players’ production of Happy End pulls off a pretty neat trick of making the difficult piece work as well as it does. It has an inherently kind of schizophrenic tone with a mix of dark, decadent, dreary atmosphere and musical smart with quite a bit of comedy and the potential for a conclusion where love or faith or trust (choose one or more) might conquer all. The show charms and provokes and disturbs and is worth seeing.
Whereas some musicals want to see the world through rose-colored glasses, characters in a Brecht-Weill piece can be sporting the darkest possible kind of shades, bringing gloom and doom and a gun going boom. Bitter is better? Are the bad guys the good guys? And what are we to think of the Bible-thumping Salvation Army soul rescuers? Are they silly and phony or sincere as can be? Happy End seems happy sometimes to have it both ways. And sometimes they do, thanks to the way the show was written and the choices in direction which can shift the balance, no easy task with no easy answers. Gangsters are gangsters, folks, and while nobody tries to make murder and bribes look honorable or cute, other tacks are tried. Making them cartoonish (i.e, dopey and exaggerated in their motley crew interaction) softens the cold hard edges. The director is David Fuller who has worked with many of the cast members in the company before, including with a recent production of Brecht-Weill’s Threepenny Opera, of which Happy End seems to be a more relaxed kid brother. Ten Ten is kind of a family affair with many folks having a longstanding relationship; in fact, Judith Jarosz is the producing artistic director and the director’s wife - she plays The Fly with flair and formidable force here. The Fly is the gang’s tough, order-barking female boss, and she’s off somewhere when we first encounter the group at their bar hangout. In her absence, there’s no absence of bossiness with the sinister Asian Dr. Nakamura (played with unflinching steeliness and control by Greg Horton that might stand a little variety but serves its purpose). Joey Piscopo is the other would-be leader, Bill Cracker, and does well mixing a shy vulnerability into his hard-as-nails persona. He holds the stage well with swagger and an air of quiet confidence.
Among the other gang members, Timothy McDonough is entertainingly watchable and likeable as Baby Face, the junior member of the menacing menagerie. Though his reactions and shtick can seem, relatively speaking, a bit exaggerated - and you can see the wheels turning in his thespian brain ("acting is reacting") - I wish some of the others had his sense of fun with the roles and willingness to play all the moments. He’s always working and present and that’s to the good.
The role of the Salvation Army’s stone-faced Major Stone had to be shared by two actresses in this production because one cast member wasn’t available for the whole run. I saw Sandy York who had just begun to take over the role (she’d played another part earlier) and her performance was one of the most satisfying. Sandy York is quite wonderful and dynamic, crisp but with sparks flying. Creating a real power struggle, her confrontations with Lorinda Lisitza (Hallelujah Lil) are electric. That’s also very much due to that talented performer’s fully committed performance throughout the show. Lorinda Lisitza, who has also gained considerable buzz and Award-time recognition for her cabaret work over the last year (Bistro winner, MAC nominee) is the heart and soul of the show as the woman determined to try to crack Cracker and get him to change his evil ways. What she doesn’t count on is becoming attracted to him and having her world turned upside down. The actress here makes it all believable and interesting in a show that isn’t always those things. Singing powerfully (a searing and emotionally naked Surabaya Johnny, for one) and giving dignity to a character who could be annoying and just self-righteous, she scores big time. Pathos and hope survive, by sheer will (character) and talent (performer). You care about her and root for her, especially when she is troubled and stands up for herself and Bill.
Gorgeous singing isn’t a prerequisite for this score (the more characterish, in-your-face attitude-striking is needed, too) but the cast sings quite well - in fact, more pleasingly than on the recently released first English language cast album of another production. If I didn’t know the songs, I would have missed some words in some of the group singing and missed some of the points. But most of the songs work well, like Bilbao Moon and Big Shot which have flavor and punch. Musical director Michael Harren is at the piano and does fine, and some cast members play instruments as part of the Salvation Army marching band, etc. Several spoken lines have particular success with their pointedness, and get a good audience reaction, like "The gang’s so calm you’d think it had rigor mortis" and "his tough exterior concealed a heart of stone," plus dry narrative asides to the audience like "Meanwhile, virtue mobilizes."
An extra added attraction is the clever and expertly done film segment of a bank hold-up imagined as an old silent movie using the cast as directed by Joey Piscopo. As a musical, it’s an oddity that’s neither fish nor fowl (but sometimes fishy in its intent and intentionally foul in its ambience), it’s still recommending viewing.
Playing at Theater Ten Ten, 1010 Park Avenue. Tickets are $20. Call 212-352-3101 or go to www.theatermania.com (cash at the door, too) Thru May 27.
