YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU


Few golden age Broadway comedies hold up anywhere near as marvelously as George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s 1936 classic You Can’t Take It With You, the playwriting duo’s laugh-packed look at a charmingly eccentric multi-generational family residing together in perfect, if oddball, harmony in a large New York City home in the mid-1930s.

The Group Rep treasure Lloyd Pedersen is warmth and wisdom personified as Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff, who quit Wall Street decades ago because he “wasn’t having any fun” and now lives with:

• Daughter Penny Sycamore (Brenda James, evoking the divine Irene Dunne), who writes plays because a typewriter was delivered by mistake eight years ago.

• Granddaughter Essie Carmichael (Cassidy LeClair), who longs to be a dancer even though her Russian émigré ballet instructor Mr. Kolenkhov (Danny Salay) opines that “she stinks.”

 • Penny’s husband Paul (Lawrence Toffler) and longtime lodger Mr. De Pinna (Patrick Anthony), who make fireworks in the basement while Essie’s husband Ed (Vansh Sha) plays the xylophone and delivers his wife’s homemade candies (called “Love Dreams”) with hand-printed circulars inside.

• African-American maid Rheba (Cynthia Bryant), who cooks meals of “cornflakes and some kind of meat” while her unemployed boyfriend Donald (Sammie Wayne, IV) is out catching flies to feed to the family’s pet reptile.

• And last but not least, “normal” granddaughter Alice Sycamore (Jessica Kent), whose humdrum day job working for a Wall Street banker has led to romance with his handsome son Tony Kirby (Ryan Rathbun) and a determination that the best way for Tony to get to know her oddball family would be “in small doses.”

Unfortunately for Alice, Tony and his parents arrive a day early for her painstakingly planned dinner party at the Sycamore’s, leading to an evening of surprises for the stuffy Mr. Kirby (Kevin Michael Moran) and his oh-so-proper wife Miriam (Lareen Faye).

Completing the cast of characters are IRS man Wilber C. Henderson (a deliciously cranky Tom Kramer), who sets one plot thread in motion when he shows up to inform Grandpa that he owes about twenty years back income tax; Gay Wellington (Linda Alznauer), the actress/lush who Penny has invited home to read one of her plays; Mr. Kolenkhov’s royal chum The Grand Duchess Olga Katrina (Sara Shearer), a Russian émigré who works as a waitress at Childs Restaurant; and a trio of G-Men (Christian George, Kramer, and Shearer) who find themselves none too happy about the circulars Ed’s been placing in Essie’s candy boxes.

Director Leota Rhodes not only elicits all-around colorful acting turns from a cast of Group Rep veterans and newbies, having several of them appear as live flashbacks to a morning paper news article is an inspired touch.

In addition to those performances I’ve already signaled out, I particularly loved LeClair’s unrestrainedly hilarious take on the profoundly untalented Essie, Salay’s entertaining comedy turn as anti-communist Stalin-lookalike Mr. Kolenkhov, Kent’s stereotype-defying loveliness as Alice opposite Rathbun (a dreamboat romantic lead with real acting chops) as Tony, Moran and Faye’s doubly-droll takes on the hoity-toity Kirbys, and Sha, whose posh Indian accent only makes Essie’s hubby more adorable.

And I’d be remiss not to mention two of the most scene-stealing kittens ever to grace an L.A. theater stage and a pet lizard with a gift for calm amidst the chaos around him.

Scenic designer Mareli Mitchel-Shields jampacks the Vanderhoff/Sycamore home with decades of accumulated clutter and costume designer Angela M. Eads deserves major snaps for a bevy of 1930s outfits from elegant to bohemian and everything in between.

Frank McKown’s lighting design includes some colorful and flashy fireworks effects while Mikaela Padilla’s sound design features a number of nostalgic hits of the era.

Cast members Rebecca Del Sesto, Theresa Ford, Paul Anthony Kelly, Koushik, Tack Sappington, Holly Seidcheck, and Suzan Solomon will perform later in the run.

You Can’t Take It With You is produced for the Group Rep by Dawn Halloran. Bita Arefnia is assistant director. Danica Waitley is in charge of animal training and handling. John Ledley is stage manager. Nora Feldman is publicist.

I fell in love with You Can’t Take It With You way back when a 1983 Broadway revival with Jason Robards was released on VHS and not only have I now seen a total of eight live productions, I had the pleasure of playing Mr. Kolnekhov a few months before I wrote my first StageSceneLA review. The Group Rep’s snazzy 2024 revival of this bona fide stage classic only makes me love it more.

The Group Rep, Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.

–Steven Stanley
May 31, 2024
Photos: Doug Engalla

 

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