Posted by Suz As feuding '60s sweeties, actors are on the shtick Kathy Janich - Staff The verdict: Swell, mostly. The time is 1968. The place, an NBC television studio with tacky pink decor and signs that flash "Applause." The happening: a live reunion telecast of America's singing sweethearts, Pete Bartel and Keely Stevens (think Steve & Eydie), whose marital theme song devolved from "Lover" to "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" because of his wandering eye and her lust for liquor. At Duluth's Aurora Theatre, Pete (Alan Kilpatrick) and Keely (Kathleen McManus) are, more accurately, America's sparring sweethearts. Dressed, we hope, not to impress. After all, it is the '60s. He's in a pink pastel dinner jacket with wide white lapels piped in black, a ruffled shirt and a lounge-lizardy mustache. She sweeps onstage in a pink gown that brushes the floor in feathery ruffles, its bodice emboldened by a really big butterfly. Kilpatrick's Pete is a Lothario who doesn't realize he's over the hill. By playing it straight, by believing he's a lady-killer when he's really buffoonish, with his eyebrow tics, exaggerated bass notes and finger-snapping ("Ya give me FEV-ahh . . . "), he rides high on every wave of laughs. McManus emphasizes the edge in Keely, a role built for New York's Sally Mayes, who some might remember from a stop at Libby's: A Cabaret a few years ago. Where Mayes bubbled, McManus seethes. Mayes' do-anything voice hit every challenge in a rangy score that stirs standards with new tunes by composer Patrick Brady and lyricist Mark Waldrop. McManus, more actor than singer, does what she can with a cigarettes-and-coffee voice and mostly gets away with it. (A spotty sound system, which I'm told has been fixed, was muddying all but her middle notes.) The broad humor of "Pete 'n' Keely" is a nice switch for McManus, known more for inhabiting the Crazy Terry types ("Sideman") or Maria Callas, as she so indelibly did in "Master Class" at Theatre in the Square a few seasons back. "Pete 'n' Keely" is a tuneful trifle with a high cheese factor; no one will ever mistake it for a great American musical. Kilpatrick and McManus could sing it better, but they diabolically overact the heck out of it, as if effortlessly extracting every drop of moisture from an already dry sponge (credit also director Jessica Phelps West). Who knew that the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was a comedy song? Or that you could see the USA in 14 songs per minute? Aurora's squabbling sweeties have a fun time onstage, if not a pitch-perfect one. They're game, if you are.
on 6/9/2004, 6:16 am, in reply to "Reviews from Aurora Theatre"
152.163.253.9
This one is from the Atlanta Journal - Constitution
Friday, May 28, 2004
THEATER REVIEW "Pete 'n' Keely" Through June 20. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. $18-$25. Aurora Theatre, 3087 B Main St., Duluth. 770-476-7926, www.auroratheatre.com.
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