The year is 1936, deep in the Great Depression. But you’d never know it from the cheery attitude of the multi-generational Sycamore family in the current production of You Can’t Take it With You. Director Scott Ellis has taken this old Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman chestnut and used his alchemy to turn it into spun sugar.
Of course, he has a lot of help. The venerable James Earl Jones not only plays family patriarch Martin Vanderhof, he also leads a troupe of talented and inventive players. His chief lieutenant is Kristine Nielson as his daughter, Penelope Sycamore. She adds a certain stability to the proceedings, while never displaying so much as a flicker of common sense. Mark Linn-Baker, as her husband, Paul, skillfully underplays the explosives expert wannabe with such finesse, he almost seems like a solid, logical entrepreneur. Julie Halston provides a counterbalance, with her over-the-top rendition of Gay Wellington, a drunken visitor who climbs the stairs like no one before or since.
So much of the delight we in the audience feel comes from the creativity of those involved; none of the most delightful moments are on the written page. Annaleigh Ashford is brilliant as the lighter-than-air daughter Essie. She glides and pirouettes across the stage and reacts to each zany situation with her arms as much as her expressive face. When Elizabeth Ashley enters the scene as supposed Russian royalty, Essie is beside herself in her desire to be deferential. She’s the figurine on the top of an old style music box.
It’s difficult to imagine a more creative actor than Will Brill, who’s fashioned Essie’s husband, Ed, into a loose limbed marionette whose strings always seem to be tangled. These two are major scene stealers, and oddly, come across as a perfect match.
The designers are no less to be praised. David Rockwell’s exterior set is a pitch-perfect painted lady of a Victorian house. But his real genius gives us a living space that tells all we need to know about the family. It’s Victorian, as well, with appropriately dark red walls but as chock-full as a curio shop. On display are a steer skull, assorted paintings of possible ancestors, a starfish, devil mask, lighted candles, and a coat of arms. (Only one note: the snakes in the terrarium are more distraction than embellishment; it’s difficult to focus on the stage action when one little garter snake is slithering up the wall of its enclosure. My advice is to pink slip this creature.)
What more praised can be heaped on costume designer Jane Greenwood? The moment when the lovely Rose Byrne, as daughter Alice, waltzes into frame in a long blue gown, there’s a collective “oh!” of appreciation from the audience. Byrne is transformed by Greenwood from a serious office worker, to a little girl who jumps up and down with her sister at the thought of marrying her wealthy beau, to a woman who would make any man want to get down on one knee and propose.
A slight moment of drama is interjected into the proceedings when the IRS comes after Grandpa Martin for tax evasion. He refuses to pay taxes because he doesn’t believe he’ll get his money’s worth – and the audience cheers him on. Of course, we don’t believe for a moment that he’s actually going to be carted off in a paddy wagon, and the solution to his dilemma is deftly dealt with by the wily old fox.
By turns, the production is partly French farce, sitcom, and slapstick. There’s both mayhem and witty lines enough to satisfy everyone’s sense of humor. Perhaps the best thing about the nutty Sycamore family is that it makes us feel that our family is pretty normal after all.
