Review: Room Service, Utah Shakespearean Festival's Randall Theatre, Cedar City, UT
[Reviews of performances are written from the particular perspective of a costume crafts artisan, and thus focus largely on technical and aesthetic aspects of costume craft items and properties.]
John Murray's and Allen Boretz's play Room Service, written in 1937, is what's typically referred to as either a "screwball comedy" or a "zany farce"--the script is full of broad physical comedy, lots of intricate plot-based gags and a breakneck pace driven by nonstop manic action with little or no character development. It's one of the two non-Shakespeare play offerings in this summer's Festival season.
Essentially, the plot can be summed up thus: a destitute company of theatre folk attempt to hoodwink the staff of a fine NYC hotel into underwriting their play, which they believe will be Broadway's next smash-hit. The characters are all broad caricatures--the naive playwright from the country, the conniving producer, the crafty bombshell, the eccentric director, the bumbling hotel manager--and the scheming bullshittery of dialogue flies by so fast you don't have time to consider whether these are realistic or sympathetic characters, you only have time to laugh. It's no surprise that this script was optioned by Hollywood as a vehicle for Groucho Marx.
If you dig that sort of thing, USF's production is a great show, no doubt about it.
I found it entertaining enough--a fine way to spend a hot afternoon, in a velvet-upholstered seat amidst air-conditioned comfort--but what really caught my interest wasn't the play itself; it was the props, set-dressing, and craft pieces. The artistic staff on this production elected to do it as a period piece in late 1930s style.
The entire show takes place over a period of 5 days in the same hotel suite, a room in the posh White Way Hotel, located above the White Way Theatre on Broadway. The set is a triumph of Deco aesthetics, from the matched antique bedroom set (purchased at a junk shop in Salt Lake, i gather), to the ubiquitous stencil motifs on all the doors, to the hand-screened 7-color wallpaper, the entire design executed in a period color palette of aquamarine, rust, gold, and blond wood veneer. Through the various doors we catch glimpses of the hotel halls (broadly stenciled as well in wine and cream) and the bathroom (period fixtures and painted with a Deco tile effect in greens and cream). Above the faux molding around the top of the "room" is a stylized cutout of the NY skyline and the very tip of the HOTEL sign itself, lit up occasionally. This photo has a fairly good view of the period leaping-stag motif wallpaper and stenciled doors.
From a costuming perspective, the most fascinating thing about this show for me was all the period mens undergarments. (Believe me, it's purely professional--all the men strip off to their skivvies at least once in the show, but none of them are really anyone i'd care to view in drawers-only mode outside the realm of theatrical performance.) If you're a fan of various styles of sock garters, buttflapped onesies for adult men, henleys, wifebeaters, and yoked boxers, this is the show for you. There's even a bright pink union suit.
Unfortunately for me, i'm not particularly into the style of women's hats in the show (wide brim, very shallow crown), though there's a sight-gag costume of a glitzed-up "Betsy Ross" (calf-length trumpet skirt and matching bodice in blue satin with huge glittery silver stars all over it, trimmed in red sparkle-organza circle-ruffles dotted in red rhinestones) with an adorably-rendered cocktail mobcap. Yes, that says cocktail mobcap, and i'm totally not BS-ing you.
There are two pairs of shoes worth mentioning from a crafter's perspective as well. The first is some red-and-white spectator pumps that were hand-painted by craft artisan Kyle Schellinger using Tarrago Acrylic Shoe Dye. And yes, "acrylic dye" doesn't make much sense to me either, but so be it. It's what they use here and claim has more sticktuitiveness than typical Magix shoe sprays or Angelus paints. Anyhow, the point of the spectators is just that--they aren't actual spectators! It's just an illusion! But damn, do they look good from the 4th row where i was sitting. I believe that he masked them with pinked tape, then went back and added in the dots typical of spectator edging. There's no good shot of them on the site unfortunately, but they match the dress in this photo.
The other notable shoe pair is the T-straps that go with the "Betsy Ross" costume--a pair of character shoes to which Schellinger hand-glued an array of red, silver, and blue sequins in swirling stripes, and including a scattering of star-shaped crystals. Sparkle-tacular!
Overall, not a terribly challenging play crafts-build-wise, but there are a few gems and the stencilwork on the set was well worth checking out.
John Murray's and Allen Boretz's play Room Service, written in 1937, is what's typically referred to as either a "screwball comedy" or a "zany farce"--the script is full of broad physical comedy, lots of intricate plot-based gags and a breakneck pace driven by nonstop manic action with little or no character development. It's one of the two non-Shakespeare play offerings in this summer's Festival season.
Essentially, the plot can be summed up thus: a destitute company of theatre folk attempt to hoodwink the staff of a fine NYC hotel into underwriting their play, which they believe will be Broadway's next smash-hit. The characters are all broad caricatures--the naive playwright from the country, the conniving producer, the crafty bombshell, the eccentric director, the bumbling hotel manager--and the scheming bullshittery of dialogue flies by so fast you don't have time to consider whether these are realistic or sympathetic characters, you only have time to laugh. It's no surprise that this script was optioned by Hollywood as a vehicle for Groucho Marx.
If you dig that sort of thing, USF's production is a great show, no doubt about it.
I found it entertaining enough--a fine way to spend a hot afternoon, in a velvet-upholstered seat amidst air-conditioned comfort--but what really caught my interest wasn't the play itself; it was the props, set-dressing, and craft pieces. The artistic staff on this production elected to do it as a period piece in late 1930s style.
The entire show takes place over a period of 5 days in the same hotel suite, a room in the posh White Way Hotel, located above the White Way Theatre on Broadway. The set is a triumph of Deco aesthetics, from the matched antique bedroom set (purchased at a junk shop in Salt Lake, i gather), to the ubiquitous stencil motifs on all the doors, to the hand-screened 7-color wallpaper, the entire design executed in a period color palette of aquamarine, rust, gold, and blond wood veneer. Through the various doors we catch glimpses of the hotel halls (broadly stenciled as well in wine and cream) and the bathroom (period fixtures and painted with a Deco tile effect in greens and cream). Above the faux molding around the top of the "room" is a stylized cutout of the NY skyline and the very tip of the HOTEL sign itself, lit up occasionally. This photo has a fairly good view of the period leaping-stag motif wallpaper and stenciled doors.
From a costuming perspective, the most fascinating thing about this show for me was all the period mens undergarments. (Believe me, it's purely professional--all the men strip off to their skivvies at least once in the show, but none of them are really anyone i'd care to view in drawers-only mode outside the realm of theatrical performance.) If you're a fan of various styles of sock garters, buttflapped onesies for adult men, henleys, wifebeaters, and yoked boxers, this is the show for you. There's even a bright pink union suit.
Unfortunately for me, i'm not particularly into the style of women's hats in the show (wide brim, very shallow crown), though there's a sight-gag costume of a glitzed-up "Betsy Ross" (calf-length trumpet skirt and matching bodice in blue satin with huge glittery silver stars all over it, trimmed in red sparkle-organza circle-ruffles dotted in red rhinestones) with an adorably-rendered cocktail mobcap. Yes, that says cocktail mobcap, and i'm totally not BS-ing you.
There are two pairs of shoes worth mentioning from a crafter's perspective as well. The first is some red-and-white spectator pumps that were hand-painted by craft artisan Kyle Schellinger using Tarrago Acrylic Shoe Dye. And yes, "acrylic dye" doesn't make much sense to me either, but so be it. It's what they use here and claim has more sticktuitiveness than typical Magix shoe sprays or Angelus paints. Anyhow, the point of the spectators is just that--they aren't actual spectators! It's just an illusion! But damn, do they look good from the 4th row where i was sitting. I believe that he masked them with pinked tape, then went back and added in the dots typical of spectator edging. There's no good shot of them on the site unfortunately, but they match the dress in this photo.
The other notable shoe pair is the T-straps that go with the "Betsy Ross" costume--a pair of character shoes to which Schellinger hand-glued an array of red, silver, and blue sequins in swirling stripes, and including a scattering of star-shaped crystals. Sparkle-tacular!
Overall, not a terribly challenging play crafts-build-wise, but there are a few gems and the stencilwork on the set was well worth checking out.