In a Drood Mood

When all elements come together, a night at the theater can be as refreshing as a three-day weekend. In WaterTower Theatre's production of the Rupert Holmes musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the cast is first-rate and the technical aspects are nearly flawless. Holmes' book and music offer a cleverly conceived play-within-a-play and more than 20 haunting and melodic songs. There's lively dancing, corny jokes and the tricky gimmick of allowing the audience to choose how to solve the "mystery" at the end. Only problem is, there's just about 45 minutes too much of a good thing. Pushing three hours, Drood at times feels like it's going to last the weekend long.

But too much of a good show isn't such a bad deal. There's plenty to like about Drood. Based on an unfinished murder mystery by Charles Dickens, who dropped dead before writing down who the culprit was, Drood takes the form of an English music hall production. The troupe of actors playing actors playing Dickens' characters melodramatically present the story of the disappearance of Edwin Drood in song and dance. After Drood vanishes--at the place where Dickens stopped writing--audience votes decide who will take on the key roles of the investigating detective, the murderer and the pair of happy young lovers. Depending on how the voting winds up, the finale could veer off in hundreds of different directions. That kind of leeway is a lot to ask of a large cast, but the WaterTower bunch, ably directed by Terry Martin, is up to it.

In the leading role of the narrator, the "Chairman" of the troupe, is R Bruce Elliott. Part Scrooge, part Puck, Elliott, thick gray hair parted in the middle and hanging to his shoulders, sets the mood for Droodby addressing the audience directly. "Let's all be as vulgar and uncivilized as legally possible," he says with a friendly growl. Elliott is an actor at a point in middle age where he is completely comfortable in his own skin and in his chosen profession. What a pleasure to watch this pro having such a good time and what fun to see him doing light comedy again. It's impossible not to like him.

In the title role is a WaterTower newcomer, Dara Whitehead. Young Edwin always is played by a woman, continuing an English music hall tradition of cross-gender impersonation, or so the Chairman tells us (Betty Buckley played Edwin on Broadway in the mid-'80s). Whitehead has a gorgeous, enormous voice and an androgynous physical silhouette that could carry her into big-voiced boy roles such as Victor/Victoria or Peter Pan. She's a pip.

As Edwin's love interest, the ingenue Rosa Bud, Arianna Movassagh wears a costume of pink confection that suits her sweet, bell-like soprano and kittenish face. Only Movassagh's wicked comic timing keeps the role from turning sickeningly sticky.

The cast doesn't lack for singing talent. Greg Allen lends his powerful baritone to the villainous role of John Jasper, the laudanum-chugging choirmaster who has the hots for Rosa's bud. M. Denise Lee, who might hold the title of Dallas' reigning musical diva, throws her thrilling voice into the torchy role of the prostitute, Princess Puffer, who runs an opium den frequented by the naughty choirmaster.

Michael Serrecchia, who overacts, oversings and over-everythings every musical role he ever gets (or at least the last two he had at Theatre Three), finally makes his hamminess work as the Reverend Chrisparkle. When he goes swanning off the stage with a flounce and a flourish, the audience falls out laughing.

For additional comic relief, there is David Stroh as the scrofulous gravedigger Durdles (and isn't that a rich old Dickensian name?). Teeth blacked out, one eye squinting, Stroh scuttles around the stage like a horny hermit crab. He's hilarious. Ditto Randy Pearlman as a bit player named Bazzard. He makes the most of an Act 1 showstopper, "Never the Luck," a tribute to small roles and unknown actors. Shades of Chicago's "Mr. Cellophane."

Even tarted up with the music hall silliness, the story that emerges from The Mystery of Edwin Drood offers a fascinating look at duality, the thin line separating good and evil in the human soul. This is a fine musical, more tuneful than most Webber-Rice shows and infinitely better lyrically than the screechfest known as Les Miz. It's just that there are about five or six too many numbers in Drood, including a ditty called "Off to the Races" that serves no purpose other than to delay the intermission after a first act that's more than 90 minutes long. At that point, the song could serve as the audience theme for the mad dash to the lavs.

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After complaining that a good production is too long, it may seem odd to squawk about a stupid play being too short. Actually, at 75 minutes, Fully Committed, the new one-act comedy now at the Dallas Theater Center, is both too short and too long. Too short to be given a big-budget, wahoo subscription-series production in a space as large as the Kalita Humphreys Theater. Too long to be what it really is, a half-baked skit better suited to the last half-hour of Saturday Night Live.