The crowd at THE NOTEWORTHY LIFE OF HOWARD BARNES tonight was buzzing before the show began. The day started at 10 A.M. and it takes quite the serious theater obsession to keep that kind of energy up for 10 hours – but the Goodspeed audience could not be stopped.
Admittedly, I was surrounded by enthusiastic, supportive Hartt students, but my section of the theater was going absolutely wild from the first moment of the show. The quick, perfectly-delivered, dry humor of the main character, Howard Barnes, immediately drew the audience in. Howard, played by Michael Mahady, began with no appreciation for musical theater, and yet I felt like we, a crowd full of theater geeks, were able to see ourselves in him. As he pointed out every ridiculous part of this genre we love, his sarcasm allowed us to laugh with the show; we were all in on the joke.
As Howard journeyed through his own musical (which I heard someone liken to The Truman Show later in the night), he discovered the intensity of his feelings for his quest companion, Maggie, portrayed with both a thirst for adventure and a hope for morality by Cassandra Dupler. Even his nemesis, Grace, played by Cori Stolbun, grew beyond her initial evil image as Howard began to realize she wasn’t so terrible – just a person trying to grow up.
When Howard allowed himself to see Grace as someone deeper than a caricature, his understanding of himself deepened. The ending is not surprising, as the story comes together in the way musical comedies always do, but Howard’s path to the end of his musical takes a unique turn. Although the show riffed on musicals for the first 60 or so minutes, Howard ultimately realized what he wanted through a particularly strong, simple scene towards the end. No music, no technical production, and staged in the audience. This brief moment away from the land of comedy and musicals was smart and interesting.
Congratulations to writers Christopher Dimond and Michael Kooman, director Lee Overtree, and music director Brad Gardner on this spectacular production!
Goodspeed Geeks 