It’s back to the 1960s with the thought-provoking and astonishing Dogfight, the latest Beck Center/Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre collaboration. It’s yet another musical based on a film (1991), but the music, the young cast, and the intimate space of the Studio Theatre combine to create a memorable theatre experience. Directed by Victoria Bussert, it runs through March 15.
Both heartbreaking and down-to-earth, Bussert’s sensitive interpretation of Dogfight riffs on the impossible choices offered young men in the 1960s–still days of universal draft–as they entertain a dawning awareness that the Vietnam War may be more than they bargained for.
When the show opens, it’s 1967 and our baby-faced hero, Eddie Birdlace (Colton Ryan) sits on a San Francisco-bound bus. Quickly his mind returns to 1963 when he and his buddies, all newly minted Marines, celebrated their last night in San Francisco (and the United States) before shipping out to war. The guys cover their fear (they aren’t idiots) by spending their last night being sure they don’t die virgins. They also amuse themselves with a contest to see who can find the ugliest girl (a “dog”) to take to a dance contest.
Birdlace invites Rose Fenny (Keri René Fuller), a naive waitress, to be his date, but the more he gets to know her, the more he realizes he likes her and that her beauty transcends physical appearance. The date goes badly, but Fuller works magic as she conveys how the gawky, modest, and self-conscious Rose pulls off a neat trick: she makes goodness look sexy and strong. Rose’s great capacity for love and humility can mitigate and transform pain into beauty (at least in a little bit of life). Ryan, with a winning combination of earnestness and bravado, persuades us fully that Birdlace, to his credit, comes to realize that.
The show’s not all earnest doom and gloom either thanks to music and lyrics by Benu Pasek and Justin Paul (ably directed by Dave Pepin) and snappy dancing (directed by Gregory Daniels). Some members of the versatile supporting cast often play several roles. Adrian Grace Bumpas, for example, gets laughs whether she plays the ditzy blonde or the stoic Native American maiden. Zach Adkins as Boland (the tough, more experienced soldier) and Gabriel Brown as Stevens convincingly play Birdlace’s closest friends.
Opening night had the occasional glitch (a long-stemmed rose lost its head, a guitar lost its sound, an announcement fell out of sync), but nothing really distracted from this poignant show. That the actors playing young people actually are young people conveys a special urgency to the production and without overt preaching or lecture makes thoughts of war’s waste all the stronger.
Bottom line: The music, the dance, the immediacy summoned by fine acting in a small space created an evening of magic that good live theatre conjures. Recommended for all but the pre-teen set.
Shows are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through March 15. For tickets check at beckcenter.org or call 216.521.2540. Beck Center for the Arts is located at 17801 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood. Free onsite parking is available.
Photo: Roger Mastroianni
Left to Right: Keri René Fuller and Colton Ryan
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.
Lakewood, OH 44107