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| Silly
rabbit: (l-r) Harriet Nichols and Joel Aroeste in NYSTI’s
Harvey. |
Play
Nice
By James Yeara
Harvey
By Mary Chase, directed
by Ralph Allen
New York State Theatre Institute, through
Feb. 15
Mary Chase’s 1945 Pulitzer Prize-winning comic crowd-pleaser
Harvey is an old-fashioned treat, as dated as saltwater
taffy and twice as sweet. Written to cheer a wartime audience,
the play ran on Broadway for almost four years (directed by
Antoinette Perry, for whom the Tony awards are named). Thus
the original production has the history: In addition to the
Pulitzer Prize and the Tony connection, Harvey’s been
a staple of community theaters since its Broadway run ended
in 1949; its reputation enhanced by the popularity of the
1950 Academy Award-winning film starring Jimmy Stewart, who
also played Elwood P. Dowd twice during the Broadway run.
Coupled with the play’s premise, that a man who likes to drink
has a “pooka,” an Irish folk spirit, in the form of an invisible
(to most people) 6-foot-tall white rabbit named Harvey, creates
safe, popular fare. The play is whimsical fun, with a positive,
feel-good message and a little titillation at the expense
of psychology and small-town gossips.
The New York State Theatre Institute’s current production
wisely gives Harvey a dated look, sticking to wonderful
1940s costumes (Robert Anton gives the characters the colors
of swirling sherbet, lime and peach and lavender, to float
around the stage in) and a great turntable set by George Allison
that is as much fun to watch as the actual play: When the
stage turns, the lights dim, the furniture is moved to the
center and the stagehands huddle and freeze, there’s a fascination
of the unseen world being glimpsed that makes perfect sense
in Harvey. It’s like watching the 6-foot pooka get
into his tux; in NYSTI’s production the huge painting of Harvey
that is a sight gag in Act II looks like a Hugh Hefner bunny
in tux, holding not a martini glass but a sandwich. It’s one
of many cute touches—the rabbit ear gobos cast on the upstage
center wall as the lights dim being another—that make this
Harvey very user-friendly.
And like the mischievous pooka, the theatrical fates conspire
to surround this Harvey with that most theatrical of
clichés: The show must go on. When the lead actor had an appendectomy
the night before opening, in true theatrical tradition befitting
this trusty chestnut, understudy David Baecker stepped into
Elwood P. Dowd after only two rehearsals and beamed his way
to beatific splendor. The universal comment during intermission—“He’s
doing very well”—speaks volumes for the good cheer that surrounds
NYSTI’s Harvey. Baecker literally shines in the role,
and even his invisible Harvey is more animated and solid than
many of his co-inhabitors of the stage. There are magic moments
in the production, particularly when the doors open and close
by themselves as Harvey chases the arrogant Dr. Chumley (another
excellent exact characterization by Joel Aroeste), that more
than offset the stumbling, mumbling, fumbling ones.
And if the story of dipsomaniac Dowd and his protective white
rabbit seems dated today, and if the frequent sexual innuendoes
never rise at NYSTI (always the most asexual of region’s theaters),
this Harvey does prove Elwood P. Dowd’s Act III advice:
“In this world you can be oh-so smart or oh-so pleasant. .
. . I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.” This is a very
pleasant production of a very pleasant play.
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