The Show-Off

Most of us get our fill of chestnuts in December, but save a little room — if you’re feeling sentimental —  for the one served up by The American Century Theater this month.

It took a few weeks beyond the holiday to get roasted — at two and a half hours with two intermissions, this is one of the thicker nuts in the basket — but that’s no matter. Under Stephen Jarrett’s direction, the show comes off as a comfortable, slow-burning treat. The mindful heat applied to this oldie, a chewy but lightly amusing 1924 comedy by George Kelly, turns what might have been a stale meal into something warm and earnestly cooked.

Helping today’s audiences revisit the past century’s best plays is what American Century does best, and although the pride with which The Show-Off shows its age wears more charmingly in certain moments than in others, it’s a suitably entertaining sample of a popular breed of realistic American parlor plays on rotation in the early twentieth century.

Kelly crafted this three-act moral drama with a practiced blend of the workmanlike and the whimsical: the plot, while lengthy, brings few surprises, and yet the humor peppered through it puts enough spring in the characters’ steps to keep the show moving briskly.

So be patient during the first scenes, when nothing much happens (one early scene places several long minutes of focus onto a newly-arrived box of bonbons, to no particularly effect) because things do speed up a bit once the bombastic Aubrey Piper (David Gram) arrives, eagerly prodding at the playwright’s neatly arranged dramatic dominos.

The city is Philadelphia, the decade is the twenties. Living day-to-day within a momentary historical lull– the Great War done, and the Depression still to come — is the Fisher family, headed by Mr. Fisher (Craig Miller, suitably gruff) and held together by Mrs. Fisher (a commendable and committed Lee Mikeska Gardner). Older daughter Clara (Jenna Berk) has been wed to Frank Hyland (Nello DeBlasio), and even if the two don’t love each other a whole lot, at least he can comfortably provide for her and buy her pretty things (note Clara’s fox-fur stole, provided by costume designer Erin Nugent).

Uh oh, but wait — younger daughter Amy (Erin E. McGuff) has her doe eyes set on the supremely irritating Piper, and not only does she seem (against all odds) to love him, she doesn’t even care whether he has enough money to support her. The increasingly deep waves of chagrin that pass across her mother’s face from scene to scene are predictable — and, as performed by Gardner, priceless.

The moral waters are muddied somewhat by Piper’s chronic compulsion to exaggerate his assets — mental, practical, and financial — so that no one is ever quite sure just how craven (and, worse, broke!) he really is. The periodic revelation of Piper’s minor crimes (mostly social, but a few legal as well) give the play much of its structure, a number of its laughs, and then its cutely improbable twist ending. Along the way we ponder, rather casually, if Amy is right to marry for love instead of money — although one minute’s exposure to her preening and doltish beau will make you hope in equal measure for a speedy recovery to her basic senses.

The Show-Off, while not an exceptionally long play, was likely to feel much, much longer than it does. That’s a big credit to Jarrett and to his nicely calibrated cast of actors, each of whom successfully taps into a period demeanor without playing it too broadly. They make nimble work of Kelly’s script, trotting smartly across the handful of redundant sequences right in time with the more central events. No actor disappoints (Evan Crump, Bill Gordon, and Joe Cronin all impress in smaller roles). And the set, designed by Leigh-Ann Friedel, feels at turns expansive and intimate, which times out nicely to the show’s evolving needs.

And Gram, bless his heart, reveals a number of layers beneath his character’s obnoxious exterior. Like Geronte in Cornielle’s The Liar — wonderfully adapted by David Ives at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in 2010 — Piper is forced to run a few extra circles around the rest to keep up the appearance of authenticity.

Gram’s task, in turn, is to put an actor’s educated oomph into this capricious hero’s journey from brash, bragging fool to regretful family man. It requires some unexpected grace, and Gram makes it look easy while doing it. Honest.

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The Show-Off by George Kelly . Directed by Stephen Jarrett . Featuring Lee Mikeska Gardner, Craig Miller, David Gram, Erin E. McGuff, Jenna Berk, Joe Cronin, Evan Crump, Nello DeBlasio and Bill Gordon. Creative staff: Set: Leigh-Ann Friedel .  Props: Joshua Aaron Rosenblum.  Lightineg . Jedidiah Roe . Costumes: Erin Nugent . Sound: Ed Moser . Master Carpenter: Jonathan Hudspeth . Lindsey Moore is the Stage Manager and Johanna Schoenborn is the Assistant Stage Manager. Produced by The American Century Theater . Reviewed by Hunter Styles.