‘War of the Worlds’ is a comedy split down the middle

By David Begelman

 

Theater Critic

In playwright Howard Koch’s imaginative—if not occasionally runaway—adaptation of H. G. Well’s “War of the Worlds,” a team of eager radio broadcasters enacts a simulated invasion on the world by Martians.

A similar scenario was dramatized in the now famous 1938 version of a Mercury Theater broadcast by a 22 year-old Orson Welles. Across the years, its aftermath took on a legendary, albeit overinflated aspect. The broadcast did not ignite a national panic, as was subsequently advertised. Only a lesser number of radio listeners who failed to hear the announcement at its end were ready to take to the hills.

In Shakespeare & Company’s current production, the setting is the “Jack Holloway Show,” a listener-friendly evening of “Song and Dance” preceding its “Mystery Theatre” presentation. This turns out to be a simulacrum of the hour-long 1938 treatment of the theme: extraterrestrials launching an attack on New Jersey.

In director Tony Simotes’s treatment of the Koch script, the First Act briskly sets the stage for news of the invasion. Before minor performers in walk-on roles can hurriedly deliver ominous bulletins to announcers during the Second Act, the show has a charm that all but dissolves in later flurries of tumult.

“War of the Worlds” opens with a lively introduction to life among backstage studio collaborators. With a garnish of audience participation, a number of very funny personages step forward to do their thing. These include radio announcers with bouncy vocal deliveries (Scott Renzoni), hilarious mimics (Josh Aaron McCabe), female vocalists who prettify the goings-on (Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Dana Harrison), flamboyant thespians doing their part-time radio gig (Jonathan Croy), the show’s host, Jack Holloway, who does a fetching rendition of the ballad, “Smile” (David Joseph), and the indispensable “Foley Artist,” a fellow in charge of sound effects (Michael Pfeiffer).

The company of players, the very best around when it comes to artfully executed farce, is a gifted group of performers with an aptitude for skillfully calibrated ensemble work. Were only the scripted Second Act up to the standards of the First!

The comedy’s ongoing conceit is that the cast is performing for an assembled radio audience. So it is not clear why they start to behave in the studio as they imagine the listening audience might, hearing their broadcast. Either one is a performer or a panicked citizen—but not both at the same time.

The Second Act is also encumbered by an overdone, kitschy enactment of the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude from “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” a tedious final speech by McCabe as Professor Pierson, and a pious insertion of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” doubtlessly added to assure everyone of being on the right side of the Lord in the face of alien attack.

The company ends with the ditty, “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” the last line of which is “If You Believe in Me.”  Only, it may be conjectured, when you are in the First Act.

“War of the Worlds” runs through November 6 at the at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre of Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, MA 01240. Show times are 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 7:30 PM. Tickets are $48 and may be purchased online at www.shakespeare.org or by calling the Box Office at (413)-637-3353.