 Getting the stage season off to a roaring start shouldn't be a problem for the Vermillion Players this year. Moon Over Buffalo offers the audience a hilarious look at the life of one family in theater.
Moon Over Buffalo will open tonight at 7:30 at Chautauqua Park and run through Sunday. It is the first of four Theater-In-The-Park productions scheduled this summer.
The roaring start for Moon Over Buffalo is from the audience, which should be rather loud in its laughter. The play is filled with quite a few one-liners that are easily understood and delivered well by the cast.
The play takes place backstage in a theater in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1953. It centers on the lives of Charlotte and George Hay, veteran actors who travel the country doing repertory - two plays at the same time. Playing Charlotte is Roxie Gregory. Denny Read has the role of George Hay, the husband. Gregory and Read are veterans of the Chautauqua stage.
 As with any actor, the dream is to be rich and famous either on the Broadway stage or in Hollywood. In the case of the Hays, it's Hollywood. Both were up for the leads in the Scarlet Pimpernel, a movie to be directed by Frank Capra, but lost the parts to Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson.
But as fate would have it, Coleman broke his leg during filming and Garson walked out. Capra, the legendary film director, was said to be on his way to Buffalo to audition Charlotte and George to fill the movie roles.
It would be so easy to assume things went well. They didn't. This is, after all, a comedy - some of it slapstick.
It's also a love story. One of the romances is one that appears to be dead. Rosalind Hay, played by Liz Vincent, brings home her fiance, a television weatherman named Howard, played by Jim Wolfe. She meets up with former fiance Paul, who is the stage manager for the company.
 Paul, played by Mitchell Beecher, still has feelings for Rosalind, but she seems quite adamant in having their relationship over.
Another romance involves Charlotte and George - and not with each other.
George apparently had a fling with one of the company's actresses, Eileen, in another city. Eileen, played by Robin Buchenau, announces she is pregnant with George's baby and chaos ensues.
Charlotte, who apparently has been courted by a New York lawyer for years, finds out about the Eileen/George affair and intends to leave with her suitor.
John Gahm plays Richard, the "lawyer to the stars" who has a crush on Charlotte.
 News of Coleman's mishap and Capra's impending arrival propels the flames of chaos like gasoline. George tells Charlotte of Capra's intentions while trying to get back with her. She refuses to listen until reading about Coleman's accident in a trade paper.
Because she ran out, George decided to drown his sorrows in booze and goes on a bender. Charlotte comes back and the slapstick takes center stage. In a scene similar to a Mack Sennett movie, Charlotte, Rosalind and Paul go on a mad search for George around the theater.
Eventually, everybody ends up backstage. George is drunk - a happy drunk - and the others try to sober him up. Due to an executive decision by George (while drunk), there is confusion as to which play is supposed to be performed. It becomes a combination of both - Cyrano and Private Lives.
 The one character who seems to be the closest to "normal" is Ethel, played by Kari Weber, Charlotte's mother and an antagonist to George.
It would be nice to say what happens in the end, but that would be giving away too much. It is strongly suggested that this production play to a full house each time. It will be worth it. Director Bob McKenzie has done a wonderful job in casting and the mix of physical and verbal humor is done quite well.
Story courtesy of the Pontiac Daily Leader
By Erich Murphy/Managing Editor
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