Given our lack of sympathy for the main characters, the lack of chemistry between the two co-stars playing them and the production’s general lack of period flavor or style, Georgia Ensemble Theatre’s “Glimpses of the Moon” is a rather slow-going exercise for a supposedly romantic and exuberant musical.
Set in New York high society at the height of the Jazz Age, the show (book and lyrics by Tajlei Levis, music by John Mercurio) is based on a novel by Edith Wharton, but it plays like a more superficial Noel Coward comedy.
For all of their spirited talk about personal freedom and liberty, Susy (Anna Kimmell) and Nick (Maxim Gukhman) don’t make the most likable couple. A pair of social-climbing “parasites” sponging off the wealth of their vacuous friends, they scheme to marry not for love but for every last cent they can take.
While living off their pricey wedding gifts or squatting at someone else’s summer estate, they agree to divorce whenever either one of them finds a better offer to exploit. There are shades of “Chicago” in the money-grubbing, status-obsessed nature of the characters, but the script trades cynicism for sentimentality.
At what point Anna and Nick begin to develop a mutual affection is unclear in the labored performances. They fall in and out of love at the drop of a song, which is not saying there’s much doubt they’ll live happily ever after once we meet the so-called competition: a haughty aristocrat (the bland Brandon O’Dell) and a goofy archaeologist (Caitlin Smith as a cross between Agnes Gooch and Miss Adelaide).
The cast also includes Mary Nye Bennett as a shrill adulteress and Googie Uterhardt as her oblivious husband (both of whom fared better as another Jazz Age couple in Onstage Atlanta’s “The Wild Party” a few years ago). Bennett’s finest moment is an unrelated bit as a French cabaret singer. One of the best character actors in town, Uterhardt is sadly wasted, although he makes the most of his too-little, too-late solo.
The numbers, none of which are credited in the program, are music-directed by Ann-Carol Pence (using a four-piece band) and choreographed by Ricardo Aponte.
Notwithstanding the colorful costumes (designed by Alan Yeong), director Alan Kilpatrick’s skimpy production generates little in the way of 1920s atmosphere. There’s an art nouveau motif in the background of Seamus M. Bourne’s scenic design; otherwise, they simply lower a chandelier or roll out a single piece of furniture to set the scene, mostly leaving the actors to loiter around on a bare stage.
With the benefit of hindsight, we know these characters are probably in for a rude awakening once the stock market crashes and the Great Depression begins. Instead of feeling sorry about what’s in store for them, though, you can’t help but wonder if it won’t serve them right.
Theater review
“Glimpses of the Moon”
Grade: C-
Through Nov. 20. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 4 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. $25-$36. Georgia Ensemble Theatre (Roswell Cultural Arts Center), 950 Forrest St., Roswell. 770-641-1260, get.org.
Bottom line: Eclipsed by mediocrity.
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