Theater Reviews

Mar 4, 2000 - Reno Little Theater's "Dream Lover" Dreams on Too Long

By Jack Neal

Comedy tonight?

Kids know that when the air is let out of a balloon it sails around the room in an exhilarating burst of energy. That's lots of fun. That speed-and-quickness lesson is a good one for directors of plays and the players who play in them.

Playwright Jack Sharkey's "Dream Lover" opened Friday night (3/3/2000) at the Reno Little Theater's temporary home at the Elks Club. What does one say about "Dream Lover" that's helpful to the gallant stage-struck gang presenting it, while being up front with the ticket buying public?

Let me try.

The play's cast of five are giving "Dream Lover" the old college try. They're often on target in various snippets of action and line delivery as the play wends its way through two hours and twenty minutes (with two intermissions) of playing time. But an Act I that runs just over fifty minutes, an Act II that runs about 40 and an Act III that zeroes in at 30 is too long a trek for amateur thespians working a play with a plot and laughs as skimpy as they are here.

Emily is married to "Moose" an aging, yet (in-his-own-mind) still macho line-backer whose career in the NFL is on its last legs - and the legs are his. He's so chauvinistic Emily is driven to ogling pictures in romance magazines. Model Galan del Suefio, a handsome latin type, materializes from one of her magazine's photos and becomes Emily's dream lover. No one, save Emily, can hear or see the dashing Galan. Enter Emily's girl buddy, Doreen, and a men's toiletry PR chap, Rex Forrester, who wants to sign Moose to a lucrative contract hawking male toiletries, and "Dream Lover" is, or should be, a set-up for a hilarious series of one-liners and sight gags.

That's where things get tricky.

Sharkey's play begs for genuinely funny one-liners. The cast does its own begging for a viciously fast pace and split-second timing, neither of which is forthcoming from Robert Chase's studied direction. Pity, too, because the players are made of the gutsy stuff that could make for a rather grand go of things.

Kathy Easly's Emily is a slow take on Lucille Ball; lots of mugging, but - sadly - without Ball's intuitive sense of clown. Bravo for energy, but sometimes less is more. Mario M. Palacios is well-cast as Emily's dream lover. He makes his scenes as a tabloid Don Juan ring with a smooth Cary Grant suave-but-silly charm. It's the silliness of Mario's charm that sometimes gets out of whack and in the way of deft fantasy fun. Patrick K. Hughes is a robust Moose of a clod; a bull-in-the-china-closet type guy who's so romantically challenged it hurts. As Doreen, Dorie Williams is a pleasant confidant for Emily's imagined troubles. She's not bad either, given her elegance and mature handsomeness, at putting the touch on her friend's invisible lover. After all, what are friends for? Completing this willing quintet is Adam R. Mayberry, whose adroit take on the understandably bewildered Rex Forrester isn't bad at all.

"Dream Lover" plays Fridays and Saturday at 8 and Sundays at 2 though March 12 (2000). The Reno Little Theater is located at the Elks Club Lodge just off South Virginia Street, Reno, across from the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. The Reno Little Theater production of Neil Simon's "Jake's Women" opens April 28. For informationm about all Reno Little Theater events call 775-331-1877.