Archetypes are tricky. To employ them in a work of fiction is to walk the razor-thin line that separates revelation from cliché.
Musical comedy, however, is a genre renowned for its schmaltzy, self-conscious glibness: it prefers to leap off the tightrope altogether, to waltz and wallow on the cliché side.
Witness “City of Angels,” the 1989 musical now playing now at USM. It’s one of the most self-referential farces you’ll ever have the pleasure of witnessing; it’s simultaneously a fawning love letter and a jeering missive, aimed squarely at both Hollywood and the creative process in general.
“City of Angels” seems like a musical romp to the audience, but it is a difficult text to navigate for its cast and crew.
The first task is in evoking a bygone era.
“The biggest challenge was getting the actors to embody that expressive, 1940s theatrical style,” said the show’s director, USM theater faculty member Wil Kilroy.
“The actors were definitely inclined to modernize and naturalize their performances, reference modern acting techniques and actors. We watched a lot of films from that era, to get that specific style of diction and the physicality down. I think that Erol (Ileri, a freshman) did a really nice job of nailing down that Humphrey Bogart style of acting, kind of stoic and tragic at the same time, lots of swagger.”
But with “City of Angels,” capturing the stylized voice and movements of 1940’s era femme fatales and hardboiled gumshoes is just half the battle.
The show contains a meta-text that runs parallel to the play itself: the story of Stine, a writer in late 1940s Hollywood who has been charged with the task of adapting one of his detective novels for the screen.
With the exception of Ileri and (sophomore) Roger Marcotte, who plays the author Stine, all the actors had to create “real world” characters in addition to the larger-than-life silver screen personas of the meta-text.
Making sure that the line between the two realities was just distinct enough was also tricky.
“Everyone had particular ways of making the distinction between their characters clear,” Kilroy said. “They tried out lots of different ideas, stuff with their voices, their bodies.”
(Senior) Cate Goetschius, who plays two secretaries, Oolie and Donna, used her voice to make the difference evident.
“Oolie, the secretary in the screenplay, has a little twang. Just a tiny difference in inflection, to subtly suggest the difference is there, ” Kilroy explained.
(Senior) Slaney Jordan, who portrays Stein’s long suffering wife Bobbi and Gabby, Stone’s lounge singer/prostitute paramour, offered further insight.
“I made a point of changing characteristics between (Bobbi and Gabby), how they expressed themselves physically. You have to know what to emphasize for the benefit of the audience, how to phrase things, since there are so many funny little reveals in the dialogue. There was a lot of layering involved; you put all of these character traits together, and then you refine them so they read the right way.”
Synthesizing these nuances is clearly an arduous task.
“This role didn’t fully come together until this past week,” Jordan said, with professional candor. “Every part is different, this one clicked for me a little bit late.”
The Tony Award winning 1989 musical is playing now though March 23 at USM Russell Hall Theater. For more information, see http://www.usm.maine.edu/theater.