Glendale Centre Theatre treats audiences to Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Bright Star, not only a heady mix of love, betrayal, hope, and redemption but a masterful example of how to convert a great big Broadway show from its multimillion-dollar proscenium roots to a mini-budgeted in-the-round retooling with zero loss of emotional impact.

A Golden Era-style Hollywood weeper given the most gorgeous of bluegrass scores and just as many joyous laughs as soapy tears, Bright Star introduces us to 38-year-old Asheville, NC literary journal editor Alice Murphy (Linda Neel), whose long-ago teenage romance with small-town scion Jimmy Ray Dobbs (Peter Easton) may have met with the approval of her parents (Lisa Garner and Rob Schaumann) but not with Jimmy Ray’s power-wielding dad Josiah (Tim McGowan), whose retaliatory actions turned a sunny teen into the hard-edged all-business adult she is today’s 1945.

Meanwhile, young G.I. Billy Cane (Jacob Reynolds) has returned from WWII with dreams of literary stardom briefly dampened by Daddy’s (Michael Shaughnessy) news that the soldier boy’s beloved mother has been “taken away” by a midnight visitor.

Since the much-renowned Asheville Southern Journal seems as good a place as any to jump-start a career in creative writing, Billy leaves behind pert local librarian Margo Crawford (Camille Madison Gray) and heads off to the biggish city where he makes it past Alice’s assistants Daryl Ames (Caleb Alman) and Lucy Grant (Haley Chaney) to meet the lady herself and impress her with his storytelling promise (and a brand-new letter of recommendation from long-ago deceased Thomas Wolfe).

And this is only the beginning of a story that would not only do Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, or Lana Turner proud, it’s one whose most improbable plot twist turns out to have been inspired by an actual event, and while Martin and Brickell’s lyrics aren’t among Broadway’s brightest (“A man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do, when a man’s gotta do, what he’s got to.”), the melodies they’ve written are blessed with one bluegrass hook after another.

As Bright Star transitions seamlessly from the 1940s to the ‘20s and back again, triple-threats Jonathan Algeroy, Michael Dumas (Max), Kevin Holmquist (Stanford Adams), Paula Montgomery, Bridget Pugliese, Calista Ruiz, and Faith Stalzer serve as Bright Star’s ever-present North Carolinian Greek chorus, observing, participating, and cutting up a rug to Katy Marcella’s delightfully engaging choreography, from square-dance to jitterbug to country hoedown.

Unlike the musical’s previous local incarnations, all of which featured the identical Broadway direction, choreography, sets, and costumes, Glendale Centre Theatre’s Bright Star goes all original all the way.

Director Martin Lang has reconceived Bright Star to stunningly inventive effect, beginning with the decision to have doorways, porches, tables, desks, counters, etc. on casters, an inspired choice that not only only facilitates their easy entry and exit but allows them to become part of a seamless integration of staging, movement, and even choreography, turning these movable set pieces into almost as much a part of the story-telling as the performers who push and pull them around.

A number of sequences stand out, in particular Lang’s ingenious staging Alice’s transformation from 1940s 30something to 1920s teen, Billy’s initial journey to Asheville in the title song, and a stunning Act One closer set in the farthest-back car of a moving train, these sequences and others transforming the audience’s imagination into an integral part of their design.

Neel, a scorching, Scenie-winning Anita in GCT’s West Side Story a few years back, is just as sensational an Alice, taking Bright Star’s leading lady from lovestruck teen to life-hardened adult while singing quite stunningly in a mix of youthful joy and grown-up pain.

Easton gives Brad Pitt a run for his money as the hunky, salt-of-the-earth Jimmy Ray, while Reynolds fills Billy up with plenty of youthful pep and charm opposite Gray’s Margo, whose perky hometown appeal proves pretty darn hard to resist.

Alman’s sassy Daryl and Chaney’s equally spicy Lucy are such standouts in major featured roles, it’s a mystery why their curtain calls don’t take place just before the production’s four leads, particularly given the cheers that greet their “Another Round,” Bright Star’s politically incorrect song-and-dance celebration of distilled spirits. (“I like hard liquor. It hits me quicker.”)

Garner, McGowan, Schauman, and Shaughnessy complete the all-around splendid cast as quartet of loving if decidedly flawed parents, with McGowan earning some joyously delivered boos as the most dastardly of dads.

Musical director Steven Applegate elicits pitch-perfect vocals to prerecorded tracks (kudos  to sound designer Aaron Overton for an expert mix) as Paul Reid lights Bright Star’s performers, sets, and Angela Manke’s colorful, period-perfect costumes to dramatic perfection.

Bright Star is produced by Brenda Dietlein. Travis Dietlein is stage manager.

Glendale Centre Theatre deserves majors snaps for programming a show without the name-recognition value of Broadway classic like last summer’s Annie or a movie adaptation like the twice-produced Footloose. Audiences who take a chance on the relative unknown that is Bright Star will be over the moon that they did.

Glendale Centre Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale.
www.glendalecentretheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
February 27, 2020
Photos: Ashley Ann Craven, Rock With You Photography

Tags: Edie Brickell, Glendale Centre Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Steve Martin