Ten Thousand Things Theatre has shown that it can creatively and effectively re-imagine chamber versions of well-known musicals, but with “Dear World” — a largely forgotten work from the 1960s — guest director Sarah Rasmussen has an unusually blank slate with which to work. And she takes advantage, with a production that skates over the challenges and moralizing but captures the daffiness, the world-weariness and the charm of this musical version of Jean Giraudoux’ “The Madwoman of Chaillot.”
The title character of the source work is the countess Aurelia, the proprietor of a French cafe and a devoted eccentric who chooses to change men’s names every hour on the hour and sees romance and idealism in a world filled with greed and resignation. When a trio of avaricious capitalists plot to take over her restaurant and drill for oil beneath it, the countess and her cuckoo compadres find a way to save the world … or at least their corner of it.
The script is kind of a mess — part morality tale, part satire, part rom-com. And though Jerry Herman’s score has some lovely numbers (including the title tune, rendered in achingly lovely harmony by Janet Paone, Christina Baldwin and Thomasina Petrus), it mostly sounds like a lesser echo of his earlier musicals “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame.”
But Rasmussen has her eight-person cast shoulder their way through the chaos, trusting that the deeper questions will reveal themselves and that the sheer larger-than-life-ness of the piece will carry it through. The show doesn’t linger nor does it pontificate, and if its central lesson that one person can make a difference doesn’t stick the landing, it’s a pleasant interlude of aesthetic, musical and character gymnastics.
Paone — who has been paying the bills for the last several years by working in the “Church Basement Ladies” franchise at the Plymouth Playhouse — brings a little of that lunacy to the role of Countess Aurelia, leavened with an almost otherworldly sense of optimism. Yet Paone can wield the sort of gravitas that makes the respect paid Aurelia by the other characters seem proper … even necessary.
Baldwin and Petrus are delightfully dotty as the eccentric ladies who support Aurelia in her quest to save the world, each blessed with their own blissed-out perspectives (Baldwin is an especial hoot, with her bug-eyed affection toward her beloved, nonexistent pooch). The two actresses do double-duty, also playing two of the three sneering, arch-“presidents” looking to destroy Aurelia’s world.
That kind of cagey double-casting is present throughout the production, with actors playing good guys one moment and bad guys the next. Kris Nelson plays the twitchy, quick-trigger prospector who first discovers the oil beneath Aurelia’s restaurant and the kindly, gossamer-spirited sewer man who lives beneath the streets. Donning a red, white and blue sash, Fred Wagner is one of the nasty oil-hungry businessmen. In a policeman’s cap, he’s a soft-hearted sergeant.
Off in the corner, music director Peter Vitale might be toiling harder than anyone else, a veritable one-man orchestra with keyboard, clarinet, accordion and goodness knows what else. Like the show itself, his frenetic machinations sometimes seem to verge on chaos but manage somehow to consistently find their way to harmony.
What: “Dear World,” staged by Ten Thousand Things Theatre Co.
When/where: Through Jan. 24 and Feb. 4-7 at Open Book (1011 S. Washington Ave., Minneapolis); Jan. 28-31 at Bedlam Lowertown (213 E. Fourth St., St. Paul)
Tickets: $30
Information: 800-838-3006 or tenthousandthings.org.
Capsule: An obscure musical benefits from TTT’s light.
