"Johnny Guitar"

Theatre review
"Johnny Guitar" at Cortland Repertory Theatre
The Ithaca Journal
August 29, 2008
711 words
"Cortland Repertory Theatre stages a campy 'Johnny Guitar'"

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Cortland Repertory Theatre stages a campy ‘Johnny Guitar'
By Mark Tedeschi • Special to Cortland Ticket • August 29, 2008

Cortland Repertory Theatre's final production of the summer, “Johnny Guitar,” is unlike anything they've produced this season — and probably unlike anything you've ever seen. Part western shoot-em-up, part romance melodrama, and part musical farce, “Johnny” plays camp about as far as it'll go.

“Johnny Guitar” is based on a 1954 Nicholas Ray film, itself based on a Roy Chanslor novel. The film starred Joan Crawford and was looked at by some critics as a quasi-western with a plot evocative of McCarthyism. The musical version (book by Nicholas van Hoogstaten, music by Martin Silvestri and Joel Higgins, lyrics by Higgins), now showing at CRT, lacks that subtext and instead embraces the silly side of things.

Bert Bernardi, behind last summer's “Great American Trailer Park Musical,” directs a fully committed cast. Chrysten Peddie plays Crawford's part, Vienna, the keeper of a southwestern edge-of-the-town saloon frequented by the undesirables. She, along with her nemesis, cattle rancher Emma Smalls (Megan Rozak), infuse their characters with an exhausting amount of emotional energy. Emma (like Helena to Hermia) is jealous of Vienna because Emma's unrequited love interest, The Dancin' Kid (Jeffrey Victor), openly courts Vienna. Other actors of note include Geoff Lutz playing the wimpy Turkey and Chris Nickerson, Danny Baylock, Matt Vavalle, and Sean Riley in various bit parts.

The title character (Scott Moreau, singing over the offstage Pete Hawley's guitar), a forgotten romance from Vienna's past, isn't the main character (Vienna is), but he does show up and offer his protection — an offer she can't turn down, since The Dancin' Kid and his gang rob the local bank and Emma tries to point the guilt toward Vienna. Johnny and Vienna hide out at the Dancin' Kid's lair and the gangs square off.

“Johnny” is initially surprising in its unique delivery. Peddie, presumably doing her best Crawford-as-Vienna, speaks nearly every line with her fists on her hips and her chin cocked up toward the audience, while Rozak's Emma seems perpetually on the verge of angry tears. You quickly welcome the overgesticulation and hyperenunciation as a comedic style, but taking it to the extreme occasionally feels tired. The play itself is perhaps the shortest of CRT's season, so the approach of excess doesn't overstay.

Jo Winiarski's set also contributes to the camp; the first thing that happens in the play is a large tumbleweed's jerky traversal across the stage via a clearly visible string. Whenever Johnny's name is spoken, it's a big event: “Johnny... Guitar.” and a sign overhead bearing his name lights up. The set also features a bar that doubles as a bank counter and a house's interior facade that, when flipped, serves as an easy exterior.

The costumes in “Johnny Guitar” (designed by Jimmy Johansmeyer) are superb. Emma's crew's black suits, Vienna's white dress, even the Dancin' Kid's bank burglary getup — they're all perfectly befitting for their characters.

“Johnny” is technically sound elsewhere, too: Shawn Boyle's blue-sky lighting complements the rocky orange background, and Joel Pape's sound design is well timed, often for good laugh (for example, horses' hooves clopping a split second before a group walks onstage).

There are plenty of memorable musical moments in “Johnny,” but my favorite would have to be toward the beginning when a few townspeople confront Johnny; he convinces everyone that they “all know the song!” and in unison, they launch into “A Smoke and a Good Cup O'Coffee.” Some other good ones: “Branded a Tramp” and “Old Santa Fe,” sung by Vienna and her cronies; “Welcome Home,” a nice, slower number featuring just Vienna; and “Bad Blood,” a fun, climactic song preceding the final confrontation of Emma and Vienna.

A few moments in “Johnny” seemed out of place. There was a completely inexplicable physical chemistry between Vienna and Emma twice referenced, and a number of phallus jokes that the production could have easily done without. And Bernardi's choreography, while tight in the gunfight scenes, at least once resorts to uninspired goofiness in Johnny's song “Tell Me a Lie.”

Still, the epic rivalry between the two female principals fuels the peculiar telling of a simple, lightweight story. And you've got to love a musical that make fun of itself: “That was good, boys — take five,” says Johnny after one song. Jokes like that one get me every time.