CHARLIE’S OASIS MUSEUM & BAR
Locally, the creative teams of Kingsley Day and Philip LaZebnick, with The Summer Stock Murders, and June Pyskacek and Tony Zito, with last fall’s Bombay Pete, revived the old style. Now comes Charlie’s Oasis Museum & Bar, a real old-fashioned musical.
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The tavern of the title is a ramshackle old watering hole on the gulf coast of Florida that’s owned and operated by Charlie’s granddaughter Marsha. Various vacationers have convened here every Groundhog Day for the last ten years–including a journalist from Iowa named Michael, a secretary from New York City named Ginger, and a real-estater from Pennsylvania named Alice, whose husband, also a longtime member of the group, has recently died. This season they are joined by Bruce, an attorney from Baltimore, and his wife, Diane.
The entire cast quicksteps with unflagging energy. Particularly outstanding are David Weynand as Bruce, the lawyer who loses his arrogance under the spell of Charlie’s Oasis, Rhea Anne Cook as Marsha, the barkeeper with a heart of gold and a voice strong and clear enough to guide in airplanes at Tampa International, and Matthew McDonald, whose heroic tenor and transparently mobile countenance make Michael more than the standard-issue lovable nebbish. As the unexpected object of his attentions, Lizanne Wilson has a lanky kind of beauty just imperfect enough to make her a plausible partner. A little more individualizing imperfection could have been expended on the pixieish Ginger and her swain, the dreamy-eyed Terry. As played by Mary Hager and Tom A. Viveiros, they are personable enough, but never seem to convey the depth of feeling that would take their characters beyond the familiar cute-and-cuddly cliches of the genre. (This is especially important in the case of Terry, who must sacrifice his four-year design project for love. More could be made of the conflicting feelings that eventually lead him to his decision.) Mary Mulligan is funny and charming as the rich and ditzy Diane, and it is to her and Weynand’s credit that their characters, though probably conceived as purely comic, display enough genuine affection for one another to qualify as a third pair of lovers.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Michael Brosilow.
