The evidence is everywhere. It starts with Brian Shea, three-time Best of the Bay-winner and one of the most versatile performers the Bay area has ever known, playing the head of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company as if on amphetamines. Worrying that the evening’s opera star, Tito Merelli, is late for rehearsal, Shea’s Saunders shouts, suffers, agonizes so loudly, you’d think he was already at the end of an operatic crescendo. But wait: There’s Jamie Jones, an actor who in past shows has demonstrated a genius for satire — and he’s lunging from place to place, jumping over furniture, emoting so exaggeratedly, he’s almost foaming with adrenaline. Jones, we learn, is Saunders’ assistant, a man so hyper-physical, his merest grimace touches all three of the set’s walls. After a while, Tito himself enters — looking, thanks to costumer Gi Sung, like a slightly disheveled college student — and of course Maxx Janeda plays him as a stereotypical Italian hothead, excessive, extravagant, at the end of his tether. He’s accompanied by his wife Maria who, as played by Sarah Pullman-Atanacio, is loud, angry, volatile—
Wait: I want to pull back. In fact, Pullman-Atanacio is excellent as Maria, who, is and should be all those things I said about her a couple of sentences ago. She only seems hard to take because almost everyone on stage so far has been equally volcanic, and naturally a simple audience member yearns for a little relief. Yearns that is, for a plot that goes something like this: Into the recognizably human world of opera head Saunders and his beleaguered assistant Max come overemotional superstar Tito Morelli and his unpredictable wife. When Saunders and Max think that Tito has committed suicide, they hatch a plot to replace him with an untried ringer. As this ringer comes to enjoy the many perks of an opera celebrity, he begins to fulfill his long-suppressed appetites; and when the real Tito comes back into the picture, everything goes haywire. Big, loud, funny ending. Well-earned.
But you can’t go from zero to 60 when you start at 110, so all the wildness of the play’s finish, in this version, doesn’t feel like any sort of development. And still there are three performances in Tenor that remind us of what might have been. First there’s Brianna Larson as Maggie, Saunders’ daughter, beloved by Max but with a yen for Tito. Larson plays farce the way it ought to be played: amplified, silly, but flesh and blood all the way. Then there’s Erica Garraffa as Diana, a promiscuous soprano who sees Tito as her ticket to the Met. I wasn’t bowled over by Garraffa’s acting, but I respect the quiet restraint with which she approaches a part that could easily turn into a caricature. And then, to risk repeating myself, there’s Pullman-Atanacio as Maria — her strong emotions are as believable as every other feature of her work. Janeda as Tito is intermittently credible, but David Barrow never seems the bellhop he plays, and Roz Potenza in a small role joins in the general excess. Shawna Colville’s modern hotel set is happily attractive, and some of Sung’s costumes — Saunders’ tuxedo, for example — make more sense than others.
Anyway, there’s the evidence: A misconceived production that in no way could be the product of Jack Holloway’s fine imagination. There’s a irony at work: behind Lend Me A Tenor, someone’s playing Lend Me A Director. It’s the only explanation.
A clever gambit, Hat Trick Theatre. But ultimately: transparent.
Lend Me a Tenor
Two of five stars
Laughing Stock, Murray Theatre, Ruth Eckerd Hall
1111 N. McMullen Booth Rd., Clearwater
Through Feb. 12: Thurs.-Sun., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 3 pm..
$24
727-791-7400 rutheckerdhall.com
This article appears in Feb 2-9, 2017.