“Annie”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - June 2011

“Little girls, little girls
Everywhere I turn I can see them…”

- Martin Charnin

Annie is all about the little girls. The little girls who line up breathlessly to audition. The little girls lucky enough to get cast and strut their stuff on the stage. The one or two special little girls who get the title role. And the countless others who sit in the audience thinking, “Someday, that will be ME!”

There are a whole lot of other people, and a dog, on the stage, but they always pale in comparison. Nope, Annie is all about the little girls; which is why many productions, including the one currently on the boards at the Mac-Haydn, are double-cast, and why I have chosen this fine photo of both sets of Annies and orphans to head this review. While I am sure that director John Saunders has been singing himself to sleep with Little Girls these past few weeks, the more is always the merrier when it comes to Annie and pre-pubescent female energy.

Headed by Jamie Burton as an adorable Annie, the crop of little girls that I saw – Haley Aldrich (Tessie), Belle Babcock (Molly), Emily Gallinger (Duffy), Jasmine Mullaly (July), Heather Pangburn (Kate), and Emily Spateholts (Pepper) – were just dynamite. I am sure exactly the same applies to Maisie Ruegn’s Annie and her cohorts. The team I saw were obviously having the time of their lives up there – singing, dancing, shrieking, and generally running amok with a thoroughly natural abandon. I was especially impressed with Babcock’s natural comic timing, Spateholts’ powerful singing voice, and the spunky young lady who soloed in You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile.

In fact, I could quibble that these orphans looked entirely too happy to be hanging out with Miss Hannigan (Monica M. Wemitt) as I am sure is actually the case. I had seen Wemitt play Miss Hannigan before, in a delightful production at the Cohoes Music Hall in 2005, but although I knew she would be hilariously funny, I was unprepared for how much more I would enjoy her over-the-top performance in the close confines of the Mac-Haydn. This is one of her very best comedy turns, and you would be extremely foolish to miss it!

I also saw Don Circle as Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks at Cohoes in 2005, and I liked him even better at close range too. Here I could see not only what a handsome man he is, but what a young one! He has a rich baritone voice and makes the most of his many numbers. I also enjoyed how closely he resembled Harold Gray’s angular and decisive early comic strip drawings.

I knew Carl Hulden had “funny” written all over him when I saw him two weeks ago in Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano and as my mind raced ahead to think of what roles I could look forward to seeing him in during the rest of the season, Rooster Hannigan came immediately to mind. Sure enough, Hulden was all slick and slithery teamed with Victoria Broadhurst as the helium-voiced bimbo Lily St. Regis and Wemitt on the many choruses of Easy Street. Now, what do I want to see him do next?

Annie is a BIG show, and it gives us our first peek at the Mac-Haydn’s 2011 crop of young talent. Unfortunately for them, as previously noted, this show is all about the little girls, and so the rest of the cast is left desperately attempting to catch our eye in minor comedy turns. They are learning the hard way the wisdom of the old adage “Never share the stage with children or animals.” Their turns will come later in the season.

In fact, I think both Burton and Rugen may be learning the same lesson after attempting to share the stage with Mister Macy, the dog playing Sandy, during their big solo on Tomorrow. Can someone PLEASE tell me whose idea it was to force the poor girl playing Annie have to handle a dog alone on the stage while trying to belt out her big signature tune? Sure, it makes a pretty stage picture, but it is really asking too much of a young performer. Animals take a LOT of training to enjoy the sounds and smells of the stage, and Macy, while he is the spitting image of Gray’s Sandy, has not had that training and is NOT happy out there under the hot lights. He has the good sense to want to get the heck out of there, and fast, and I don’t blame him. Let him leave and let Burton or Rugen concentrate on their singing. Macy had a lot more fun outside on the Mac-Haydn terrace during intermission being fawned over by the little girls of the audience. There, safely beside his master, he was thoroughly enjoying all the attention.

I did enjoy seeing Mark “Monk” Schane-Lydon, switch from playing one famous comic strip dog (he just finished a stellar turn as Snoopy at the Ghent Playhouse) to wrangling another one in this show. As Warbucks’ butler, Drake, Schane-Lydon was a cheerful and energetic presence. He seems to be diving into his acting career with both feet these days, assaying roles at several regional theatres, popping up in TV commercials, and joining Nutshell Playhouse as a clown!

Overall, this is a very lively and likable production of a musical theatre family favorite, but it is, as I stated before a BIG show, and while the Mac-Haydn has talent aplenty to fill the stage, their unique in-the-round performance space prevents them from giving the show the physical look it demands. An awful lot of time is wasted while stagehands scramble around in the dark and the Stalwart three-piece musical ensemble – musical director Joshua D. Smith, his assistant Matthew Rose, and percussionist Paul Reed – vamp. And all this to bring on some cumbersome bits of furniture which really don’t set the scene. The lack of stage magic is sorely felt in the big ensemble number NYC, but the minimal approach, combined with Jimm Haliday’s fine costumes and Andrew Gmoser’s evocative lighting is very successful in We’d Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover.

There are a lot of politics in Annie, as there always were in Gray’s comic strip, which first appeared in papers in 1924 and was officially “cancelled” last year (yes, 2010), although Gray died in 1968 and other artists drew the strip. Interestingly, Annie started life as a male orphan named Otto, and it wasn’t until he switched the gender of his protagonist that Gray struck pay dirt. Ever since Annie has been a symbol of American tenacity and ingenuity – bravely tackling communists and Nazis, along with more run of the mill evil-doers, throughout her long career in the Sunday funnies.

I wish librettist Thomas Meehan and lyricist Martin Charnin had been able to bring a tougher Annie to the stage and made her less dependent on a man to “rescue” her. While Warbucks does adopt Annie in the comic strip, he generally leaves her to her own devices when it comes to crime fighting, of which she doesn’t get to do any here. Heck, she only gets to say “Leapin’ Lizards!” once!

And in making Annie more dependent on “Daddy,” the creators left a gaping chasm of danger into which an unwary director can fall. Unfortunately Saunders’ does not manage to avoid the Ick Factor which can so easily kick in towards the end of Act II when “Daddy” and Annie go to “make it official” with Judge Brandeis (Ryan Green). Saunders, Circle, and Alison Drew, the actress playing Warbucks’ secretary, Grace Farrell, don’t make enough of the incipient romance between these two adults, and the staging of the adoption scene looks creepily like a wedding.

But just push that image aside and wait for the orphans to make their final Christmas Day entrance under the wing of Wemitt in the most atrocious and hilarious holiday ensemble of all time. They not only get lots of presents under the tree, they each get a pretty velvet dress in which to take their curtain calls. It will warm the cockles of your heart.

Annie runs June 9-12 and 15-19 at the Mac-Haydn Theatre, 1925 NY Rt. 203 in Chatham, NY. The show runs two hours and forty minutes with one intermission and is suitable for the whole family. Matinee and evening performances, times and ticket prices vary: visit www.machaydntheatre.org or call 518-392-9292 for more information.

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