A comprehensive history of professional theater in Southeast Michigan has yet to be written, but one supposed fact certainly seems true: that blue collar towns are not supportive of the performing arts. And if you think about it, that COULD explain why efforts to produce live theater in the industrial neighborhoods of Detroit's east side and northeast suburbs have generally failed to build audiences and take root in those communities. But how, then, do you explain the anomaly known as Broadway Onstage Live Theatre, which has survived and thrived just north of the Detroit border in Eastpointe since 1994?
That's a question I've thought about for quite some time, and so on a very wet Friday evening I braved the elements and made my first visit to the storefront theater that's home to Dennis Wickline Productions, which opened its 30th season that night with the original comedy "The Social Security Murders."
And what did I find?
For starters, a very friendly business! At the door, I was met by longtime audience favorite CeCe Lesner, who I found out later plays Bert in the production. She greeted me like we were old friends, and we had a lovely chat. (A couple of them, in fact.) In the box office was the equally chatty Elizabeth Rager, who plays Dorothy, who led me to my seat. And if I'm not mistaken, John Arden McClure (another longtime Broadway Onstage actor who plays Warren in this production) manned the refreshment bar. (I didn't wander that far into the theater and only saw him in the distance.)
As I glanced around the theater, I found a comfortable, homey place with what appears to be costumes and props from previous shows on display throughout the space. The stage is long, but not very deep, and the slightly raked theater-style seating provides every customer with a good view of the action. (Since there are only a handful of rows, no one in the house has a bad seat.)
Quite unique, though, is the patented TeeVeeStage Presentation System, which features a series of eight TV monitors above the stage. If you're sitting on the right side of the theater as I was, the monitors in front of you show you views from the left side of the stage – and vice versa. I didn't need to use them since I was sitting near the center and in the second row, but I did catch myself checking them out every now and then just to see if they added anything to the experience. (They didn't.)
What I loved even more, however, was their use before the show and during the intermission to relay messages to the audience (such as "10 minutes until curtain") and to show entertaining videos while the audience waits for the show to begin. (A Laurel and Hardy video was playing this past Friday.) Plus, the monitors were integrated into the show quite effectively. (Dorothy stars in a local access cable news show, of which we got a glimpse in the second act.)
Since the company's business model relies totally on ticket sales to stay alive, producer (and in this case, playwright) Wickline has analyzed historical data and patron responses and serves a healthy dose of comedies – especially murder mysteries – every season. "The Social Security Murders" is the latest, and tells the story of three sisters who have come to live with their niece because of a rash of murders – 19 so far over 23 months – that have one thing in common: The victims are female Social Security recipients. Since the police have been slow to resolve the case, the three decide to tackle it themselves – and what they discover stuns them: They're the next victims!
Wickline's script is typical of the genre, with mis-directions, red-herrings and stereotypes aplenty. But certain details are repeated too often, too much background information obfuscates what's important for the audience to remember, and the act one closer amounts to nothing in the second act. Yet it also provides plenty of ammo for the actors to use to build the fun and quirky characters audiences have come to expect from such shows.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened at the opening night performance. Plenty of lines were bobbled throughout the show – especially as the second act progressed – and the dialogue delivery rarely gelled into natural-sounding conversation. Plus, occasional traffic congestion found too many actors trying to share the same space at the same time.
My assumption? The rehearsal schedule was a week or two too short. So with more time spent with their scripts, I suspect NEXT week's performances will be considerably better. And I'll gladly be back to check out a future production in the theater's 2010-11 schedule.
I do have one last observation, however: If you're staging a murder mystery and the villain appears in disguise during the first act, make sure the costume doesn't accidentally reveal his/her identity. I knew who the killer was very early on because of a shock of hair that poked out of the mask – which made the rest of the unfolding plot less of a mystery and rather unnecessary!
REVIEW:
'The Social Security Murders'
Broadway Onstage Live Theatre, 21517 Kelly Rd., Eastpointe. Friday-Saturday through Aug. 21. $16. 586-771-6333. http://www.broadwayonstage.com.
