‘The Matchmaker’ makes an excellent match with SPTC production
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: July 28, 2010
There’s really nothing like sitting back with Thornton Wilder and friends for an intimate chat, punctuated by the farce of whatever the great author and playwright set his never at rest imagination to.
Wilder’s signature presentational style of having his characters regularly breakaway to chat cozily with the audience - widely used now in better television comedies... if there is such a thing - might have stemmed from his childhood.
It’s hard to imagine Wilder, winner of Pulitzer and other prestigious prizes, as the teased, lonely boy at The Thacher School in Ojai, where the boarding student would escape to the library for peace and intellectual stimulation.
The former became a lifelong obsession and the latter Wilder demonstrated by starting to write plays in the oasis of imposed quiet the library enforced.
Perhaps Wilder’s characters’ intimacy breaks with the audience stemmed from the loss of his twin brother at birth, creating a lifelong quest to talk to that one person who was - at least for a time - closest to him.
Pop psychology would note Wilder’s imagination at times reflected the mascot and symbol of Thacher, the toad and Pegasus.
And the Santa Paula Theater Center’s production of “The Matchmaker” is a little of both.
“The Matchmaker” adopted from the French by Wilder and later reborn as the musical classic “Hello, Dolly” is closing this weekend after a successful run, not a surprise with its cast of Wilder characters and the top drawer acting that carries them to the top.
The main character in this early 1880’s era set gem is Dolly Levi, a widow whose livelihood depends on others’ affairs of the heart, once Dolly gets her capable hands on them and guides them down the path to romance.
But Dolly (played riotously by Peggy Steketee, a real tour de force) has romantic plans of her own concerning a wealthy client; Horace Vandergelder (the suitably bombastic Michael Perlmutter) whose world is populated by fools, at least according to him.
There’s the foolish and damnably poor artist Ambrose Kemper (an earnest Curtis Cline), deemed too poor to marry Vandergelder’s niece Ermengarde (young and foolishly in love Allison Williams); Vandergelder’s own head in the clouds employees, Cornelius Hackl (a very appealing - and only slightly foolish - Kyle Johnson) and Barnaby Tucker (full-out foolish Marc Flora), who decide to take off for the big city to find adventure; and millinery shop owner, widow Irene Malloy (slightly foolhardy and charming Christine Burke) and her employee Minnie Fay (vivacious Kimberly Peters, looking for someone to fool around with).
Others on Wilder’s fool meter including servant and cook (Joyce McWilliams, acting suitably as if wearing a fool’s cap); devilishly foolish Malachi Stack (Roger Krevenas engages as the man who can handle only one vice at a time); Miss Flora Van Huysen (Nancy Solomons as the fool away plotter) and the put upon cabman (Daniel Ortiz, no fool when it comes to earning money).
Even the great man’s barber (Wayne Cantero) is a fool to put with jumpy Horace and one must wonder how often he has been tempted to cut the businessman’s throat.
Dolly has a foolproof plan for her wealthy client - true love not with the desperate to marry Mrs. Malloy but to make a match for the matchmaker herself, the only woman that truly understand and appreciates - and can handle - Horace.
Steketee as Dolly steals the show, her quips and good sense intermingled at all times, timing impeccable, bearing matchmaker regal as she implements her foolproof plan. It clearly was destiny that led to the meeting of Dolly and this actress, just as sure it is destiny that brings love to any of those who even brush up against the powers of their matchmaker.
All the actors are very good and add to the music hall type fun of this play, but the gods must have been playing a joke on Perlmutter... there is no doubt that outside his moniker he has never muttered anything, his voice like a musical instrument that knows only one volume - suitably loud.
A revolving cast of guests stars have had stints throughout the run of this play as the Gypsy violinist at elegant Harmonica Gardens restaurant; Santa Paula Police Chief Steve MacKinnon warranted two rounds of applause, pre-play when his cameo was announced and again as the Gypsy, the obvious fun he was having shared by the delighted audience.
Kudos to director/sound designer Tom Eubanks for keeping this rollicking production on track and as well as keeping track of the actors as he coaxed notable performances out of each.
Will Shupe designed a series of sets - four! - that well reflects the times, trends and temperaments of the early 1880s, the upstage fainting coach perfect for the good humor of the audience to fall upon. Ami Shupe’s costumes are a delight from the innate magnificence of Dolly to the plainest parlor maid... and those chapeaus truly are to die for.
Stage Managers Suzi Skutley and Joseph Castaneda ably keep things running, not an easy task with this actor and set heavy play.
Leslie Nichols produced this farce mixing the toad - the early Horace - and Dolly, a Pegasus whose imagination, wit and charm wings you to a place that only Wilder could know.
As Stack confides to the audience: “Everybody should eavesdrop once in a while. There’s nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.”
The Santa Paula Theater Center (125 S. 7th St.) production of “The Matchmaker” will run through Sunday, Aug. 1.
Showtimes are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $18 for general admission, $15 seniors (55-plus) and students, $12 children 12 and younger.
For more information, call 525-4645 or visit http://www.santapaulatheatercenter.org
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