Eric Appleton's "homeland" continues through this Sunday, November 18.

HOMELAND

Productions of two locally written plays begin their final performances this weekend. One is a nostalgic musical; the other is a drama focused on contemporary issues. Each is credible and insightful entertainment and has been given a strong production.

Eric Appleton’s homeland at Road Less Traveled Theatre is the story of a Midwestern family that, like the Alvings in Ibsen’s play, is plagued by every sort of ghost. Unlike Ibsen, these ghosts are not limited to the cultural baggage we carry or the sins of our fathers; homeland has a bona fide poltergeist making mischief in the home of a congressional candidate, married to a member of the school board, who has banished his only son for being gay, while his daughter lives in a world of adolescent angst. This attracts a mercurial ghost hunter from Austria, one Dr. Nandor, played with mischievous charm by John Joy, accompanied by his Buffalo-born assistant, Pushkar, who is making a concerted effort to rebel against his traditional upbringing by his Indian-born parents. Pushkar is played with appealing sincerity by Dinash Lal.

Dan Walker plays the husband-father-candidate, and gives the role a wonderfully strong performance, bringing utter conviction to the most preposterous attitudes. The production is also blessed with the talent of Susan G. Toomey, ever a pleasing and engaging actress, who creates a vivid and complex character in the wife, Mrs. Newhauser. Bonnie Jean Taylor brings energy and focus to the difficult role of the daughter, Emily.

The premise is intriguing and the dialogue is, for the most part, both natural and witty. In addition, the performances are vivid and unswerving in their commitment. Still, in this, its first production, homeland is not merely expansive; it is sprawling. By the time Emily goes missing in the midst of a Columbine-esque school shooting, we are rather lost as to whether we are in a surrealistic landscape or an updated 19th-century melodrama. This play has got everything but focus.

Directed by Scott Behrend, homeland was developed in the Road Less Traveled new play workshop. It has been developed and refined since its first workshop reading, and now would seem to be looking for greater simplicity and clarity of focus. The set up for the plot is simple, but as the piece becomes plot more and more driven, we go into complications far more dire than necessary or helpful. This is the Jacqueline Susanne school of plot development—which I mean in the most positive way; I adore Jacqueline Susanne. In one of Jackie’s plots, the secret lover cannot be the neighbor, cannot be the mayor, cannot be a senator—no, he must be the president of the United States! The consequence is camp. That is not to say it isn’t great fun—it most undeniably is. But homeland does not feel as if it wants to be camp.

All is far from lost. Indeed, the point of first productions is to get the play out there and see what you’ve got, and in homeland Appleton gives us rather a lot. The overall feeling of seeing the play is highly satisfying. Moreover, the development of local playwrights is critically important to the health of our theater scene, and in Appleton we have a promising and forceful voice.

ITALIAN SERENADE

Neal Radice, writer-composer-designer-theater founder and irrepressible theater community personality, has written many musicals before. Not shy of large projects, he has musicalized Ibsen’s Peer Gynt; he’s done a trilogy of Sherlock Holmes musicals. With Italian Serenade, he explores his own family heritage in a feel-good exploration of Italian immigration to America. And not just to America—to Buffalo, New York.

The story is narrated by Uncle Giuseppe, played by Michael Starzynski, and begins on the day of his death. This incident, and a small bequest of funds to his nephew Sebastiano, played by Matthew Mooney, begins a chain of events that will lead to the immigration of the entire family to Buffalo.

The opening monologue emphasizes that the immigration story is true of all groups who came to America during the late 19th century, from the Irish to the Polish. Italian Serenade, however, benefits from its ethnic specificity, and from its retrieval of local history. The latter is emphasized with actual photographs and maps of the original Italian settlement of downtown Buffalo, with Italians from specific regions creating enclaves on specific streets.

And so what’s not to like? The show has got appealing melodies and excellent singers to sell them. It’s got love and loss, sacrifice and triumph. I watched grown Italian-American men fighting back tears as vintage photographs were flashed up onto a screen. I saw grown women not even bothering the fight the tears.

Starzynski gives a strong and humorous performance as a variety of characters. Despite an obvious cold on the night I saw him, he nonetheless sang well and delivered every laugh with expert timing.

Matthew Mooney plays Sebastiano with guileless likeability. He sings well and provides the emotional center of the piece.

Leah Schneider, who plays Sebastiano’s wife, Caterina, has a luscious voice, which Radice exhibits to its fullest in her solo, “Ho Date Il Mio Cuore.”

In minor roles there is some major vocal talent. Roger Griffith’s performance as the fruit seller sent audience members hunting the program for his name.

With so much rich territory to cover, the show does seem to hurry through its conclusion. This is entirely forgivable in view of the pleasure we have enjoyed up to that point. Moreover, as I discussed above, first productions are intended to show the shape of a dramatic work. Italian Serenade is uncommonly strong, requiring only minor reshaping and adjustment.

CRAZY MARY

How lucky for Buffalo that A.R. Gurney cannot resist the lure of our city. His dramatic imagination returns here, the place of his youth, again and again. In Crazy Mary, Lydia is a woman from a mainline Buffalo family whose glorious past is more vivid than its ignominious present. She has traveled to a sanitarium outside of Boston to visit Mary, a second cousin, once removed, who she has not seen since they were both children. Fate has reunited these distant cousins, when the death of a beloved grandfather made Lydia not just Mary’s closest living relative but the trustee of her formidable estate.

Familial responsibility is only part of what motivates Lydia, however, for while Lydia and her side of the family has piddled away their fortune, Mary has been institutionalized, and her assets have grown and grown. Lydia has not really come to check on her cousin at all; she’s come to check on the money.

When Mary, who is often catatonic, is lured back to life through her attraction to Lydia’s Harvard student son, Skip, things start to get dicey—and hilarious.

The original New York production, earlier this year, featured Sigourney Weaver as Lydia and Kristine Nielsen, a character actress of superhuman talent who has become ubiquitous on New York stages in recent years, as Mary. Nielsen currently stars as Bootsie in Charles’ Busch’s Die Mommie Die! Off-Broadway. (Those traveling to New York might like to know that the show is unaffected by the current stagehands strike.) The Kavinoky production is the first of the play subsequent to New York.

Directed by Paul Todaro, the Buffalo cast embodies the characters far differently but no less compellingly than the New York originals. Nan Wade underplays the title role in a manner entirely opposite of Nielsen’s performance, while still making clear the distinction between crazy and lucid Mary. Within the fantasy of Gurney’s comic situation, Wade evokes the real emotions that are vital to making the play work.

Maureen Porter slices into the comic contradictions of Lydia with razor precision. She benefits from the fact that the Buffalo audience understands the jokes far better than New York audiences did. She brings down the house, for instance, when Mary says she’d like to go to Buffalo for the fun and the parties and Lydia tells her all that is “pretty much over” now. In New York, that was a throwaway.

Joyce Carolyn gives a convincing and nicely nuanced performance as the nurse. Norm Sham’s portrayal of the doctor is brilliant—quietly humorous, human and real. For me, his interpretation entirely erased the utilitarian performance of his Off-Broadway predecessor. Michael Vargovich is quite endearing as Skip, a character he interprets to be innocent beyond his own comprehension and eminently kind.

This is a handsome production. Costumes have been selected with knowing insight by Jen Gurney—who is, incidentally, the playwright’s niece. David King has provided a handsome set—a formerly grand home turned mental institution.

Plays that have run in New York often lose subtlety en route to the provinces. This is somewhat true of Crazy Mary. In New York, productions enjoy long rehearsal and preview periods. Here, rehearsals are truncated by comparison, and the first time actors hear audience response is often on the opening night. This production of Crazy Mary is somewhat broad in its comedy. The interpretation is entirely valid, though it might take some by surprise when the resolution of the plot involves great sadness. Still, Todaro has treated the material respectfully and faithfully. The cast gamely rises to the occasion, never flagging in their total commitment to Gurney’s text, and the total result is both insightful and great fun.