Musical Theatre Guild treated lucky L.A. audiences to a one-night-only concert staged reading of Jerry Hermans’s Mame that proved not only a terrifically directed-and-performed look back at the 1500-performance 1966 Broadway smash but illustrates to perfection precisely why MTG is a SoCal treasure.

 There was a time when musical theater lovers could be guaranteed a big-stage Mame every few years or so, but with Civic Light Operas having bitten the dust, regional biggies either opting for the latest Broadway hit or programming yet another Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, and Man Of La Mancha (but little or no Jerry Herman), it’s up to Musical Theatre Guild to take on shows like the upcoming season’s rarely-revived Zorba, never-revived Minnie’s Boys, and too-expensive-to-revive Sunday In The Park With George, rehearse them in 25 hours, and give audiences book-in-hand but otherwise almost fully-staged “readings.”

Broadway buffs will recall Auntie Mame Dennis, a woman who can “coax the blues right out of the horn” and “charm the husk right off of the corn,” first introduced as the title character of Patrick Dennis’s 1955 novel, adapted for the stage the following year with screen star Rosalind Russell in the role she went on to reprise three years later on the silver screen before Angela Lansbury gave Mame musical life in 1966 thanks to show-tune master Herman, still riding high from the ’64 mega-smash Hello, Dolly!

 Book writers Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee opted wisely not to veer far from their original play, introducing us to madcap bohemian hostess-with-the-mostes’ Mame Dennis (Kelly Lester) through the eyes of her ten-year-old orphaned nephew Patrick (Travis Burnett), who shows up unannounced in the care of Miss Agnes Gooch (Melissa Fahn) and is promptly thrown into the Roaring Twenties Manhattan at its roaringest and introduced to his Auntie Mame’s wild-and-wacky circle of friends and to her risk-affirming mantra, “Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death!”

 The Stock Market Crash means a succession of odd jobs for the previously comfortably-off Mame, including a disastrous stage appearance opposite her lifelong best frenemy, Broadway megastar (and “World’s Greatest Lush”) Vera Charles (Barbara Carlton Heart), followed by a trip down Georgia way where she makes “the South revive again” and wins the heart of plantation owner Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside (Brent Schindele) in the bargain.

All is not Moonlight and Magnolias, however, most notably where Patrick is concerned, and never more so that when boy becomes man and Mame’s formerly obedient, adoring nephew (Will Collyer) begins to display every guardian aunt’s worst nightmare, the serpent’s tooth of a thankless child.

Fortunately, with show tune king Jerry Herman delivering one hummable gem after another, audiences are guaranteed if nothing else one of the most infectious scores of the 1960s.

 Director Lewis Wilkenfeld, choreographer Heather Castillo, and musical director Cassie Nickols, who resurrected last season’s High Society to bubbly perfection, reunite to ensure a Grade-A Mame all the way, from Wilkenfeld’s inventive touches (like finding a way to stage “The Moon Song” without needing to have a quarter moon descend from the proscenium with Mame as its passenger), to Castillo’s assorted bits of full-cast footwork scattered throughout, to Nickols and her onstage orchestra sounding as if there were twice as many of them up there.

 Of course there can be no Mame without a leading lady capable of following in some pretty illustrious footsteps and Lester is that leading lady, giving America’s favorite Auntie abundant fabulousness and panache, earning deserved cheers for a heart-wrenching “If He Walked Into My Life,”showing off great chemistry with captivating child actor Burnett and the ever charming Collyer as his adult self, and igniting romantic sparks with the always dashing Schindele.

 Best of all among supporting cast members are MTM jewels Heart and Fahn, the former making Vera her glamorous, glorious own (and duetting “Bosom Buddies” with Lester to some of the evening’s biggest laughs) and Fahn, eschewing her usual dumb blonde persona to bring Agnes Gooch (the name says it all) to delicious ugly duckling life.

 Ensemble members Katie DeShan, Tal Fox, Todd Gajdusek, Anthony Gruppuso, Pamela Hamill, Michael Kostroff, Michelle Lane, Courtney Lundy, Tonoccus McClain, Glenn Rosenblum, Glenn Shiroma, Nikki Elena Spies, Natalia Vivino, and Kelsey Weinstein each deserve a sentence of their own for delivering one terrifically entertaining cameo after another in addition to making full-cast production numbers like “It’s Today,” “Open A New Window,” “Mame,” and “That’s How Young I Feel” infectious showstoppers.

Additional shout-outs go to costume coordinator A. Jeffrey Schoenberg of AJS costumes, production stage manager Art Brickman, stage manager Stacy Cortez, assistant stage manager Liza Ashley, production manager Leesa Freed, and production coordinator Kristi Holden.

Theatergoers who long for the days when Golden Era Broadway classics popped up regularly in their favorite musical theater’s season lineup can rejoice that Musical Theatre Guild is there to bring shows like Mame back to life for one brief shining moment. To quote from the title song, “We think you’re just sensational, Mame!”

Alex Theatre, Glendale.
www.musicaltheatreguild.com

–Steven Stanley
September 23, 2018
Photos: Gordon Goodman

Tags: Jerome Lawrence, Jerry Herman, Los Angeles Theater Review, Musical Theatre Guild, Patrick Dennis, Robert E. Lee