Theatre--Review

The newest reviewer for the blog is Cody Daigle. Cody is a playwright and former Lafayette Parish Arts Academy theatre instructor. His plays The Last Night of the World, Life/Play, and Providence have been produced in New York, and many of his plays have been seen locally. He is currently a reporter for The Daily Advertiser.

The Eunice Players' production of Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo is awash in a quality often missing these days in the theatre – charm. From its opening moments, this production works hard to win us over, and it does so without feeling forced or pushy. It's an ingratiating production that never becomes grating, and by evening's end we're glad to have made its acquaintance.

The Last Night of Ballyhoo, the 1997 Tony-winner for Best Play, takes place in the Atlanta home of Adolph Freitag (Wesley Saunders), who lives with his two sisters, Reba (Deborah Ardoin) and Boo (Jody Powell). Boo's daughter Lala (Claire Anding) has returned home after a disastrous semester at college, and Boo is determined to set her back on track in Atlanta's social circles. Her plan centers around getting Lala the perfect date for Ballyhoo, an annual dance for the wealthiest of Atlanta's Jewish population. Complicating matters is the visit of Reba's daughter Sunny (Abby Deger) from Wellesley and the appearance of Joe Farkas (Gabe Ortego), a Jewish boy from New York recently employed by Adolph's bedding company.

From there, the play follows typical romantic comedy plot turns. Lala falls for Joe, while Joe falls for Sunny. Boo contrives to get a good Jewish boy from Lake Charles named Peachy (Ryan Buxton) in for Ballyhoo. Adolph tries to dodge the romantic entanglements brewing under his roof, and Reba spouts a seemingly endless supply of priceless Uhry one-liners.

The best acting on stage comes from the trio of Saunders, Powell, and Ardoin. These three ground the production and do an excellent job capturing the buoyant spirit of the play. The time these three spend on stage together is a delight, and I was always eager for their return. Ardoin in particular delivers the goods, giving Reba a warmth and poignancy that elevated her above just being comic relief.

Among the younger cast members, Ortego turns in a confident performance as Joe, and Buxton makes an impression with the show's smallest role. Anding and Deger both do nice work in the show's ingénue roles, but their footing falters when the play hits its more somber notes.

And it is in those moments when the production itself fails to impress. The beauty of Ballyhoo lies in Uhry's ability to puncture the comedy with moments of real emotional force – the bitter confrontation between cousins at the close of Act One, a deeply moving recollection by Sunny in Act Two – without which the play loses an important texture. These moments are never fully realized in this production, and one wishes for the opportunity to peek past the charming exteriors of the characters into their darker, less comfortable spaces.

Because, while the bulk of the narrative traffics in "Who will ask who to Ballyhoo?" romantic comedy, Uhry's real focus is deeper -- the assimilation of American Jews in the South prior to WWII. Beneath the fuss over dresses, dates, and Ballyhoos past, the play lays bare the systematic peeling away of the family's Jewish identity and the brutal prejudices that surface once that identity is taken away.

In one of the play's pivotal scenes, Sunny tells Joe, "There's a hole in me where Judaism should be." That hole exists in each of the central characters, and without experiencing the wreckage that absence leaves behind, the audience never feels the full impact of Uhry's message. Without rough edges, Ballyhoo never gets under our skin, which is where it aims to be.

That aside, the production remains a delight. Ortego (doing double-duty as director with Angie LaCalle) has put together a good-looking and entertaining evening of theatre. The Eunice Players have done a commendable job with a difficult play, and I left the theatre eager to see what they'd do next.

Long on charm, this Ballyhoo will leave you smiling.
--Cody Daigle