Also this issue:

On the Job
Publicist and performer Christine Barbush is taking on Philly’s arts scene.
-Trish Boppert

Modern Marvel
Munakata Shiko's prints illuminate the PMA.
-Susan Hagen

Camelot/Broadway Love Affair
-Debra Auspitz

Time/Travel
-Morgen Rossmair

Mary Knott
-Paul Burress

August 15-21, 2002

theater

Stage Struck

by Toby Zinman

Through Sept. 8, Society Hill Playhouse, 507 S. Eighth St., 215-923-0210

DUMMY: You’re not my type.

MAN: Why not? DUMMY: You’re too wooden. That’s no dummy, that’s a critic.

Most of the two hours of this amateurish tribute to old-time vaudeville are about that funny. R.J. Lewis, who wrote Stage Struck's book and lyrics, and who performs nearly all the roles in this show, is nothing if not wooden. He is also a good ventriloquist, a good magician and a fair juggler. Unhappily, he can neither sing nor dance nor deliver lines, and although he is obviously knocking himself out trying, the evening is more an embarrassment than a pleasure.

The plot begins when Simon, a security guard, is assigned to an old vaudeville theater slated for demolition the next day. Simon confesses that long ago he wanted to go on the stage, but when a magic trick failed, he lost his nerve and opted for a "responsible" job. He finds a ventriloquist's dummy in a trunk, and then discovers that Wilson, the dummy, can talk.

Unpacking trunk after trunk, donning costume after costume, Simon becomes, in succession, the entire vaudeville program from stilt dancer to plate twirler. He acts out a whole melodrama. He dances in the dark with a "ghostly" presence under black lights. He juggles. He finds coins in the audience's ears, and calls a kid on stage to help with magic rings. He sings opera.

And between each act there are "inspirational" you-can-do-it songs about being "stage struck." (Ralph Carbone wrote the music.)

As homages and tributes go, Stage Struck could have turned Ed Sullivan against dog acts and tumbling troupes. If you want to know why the good old days of vaudeville were so good, go to 1812 Productions' brilliant vaudeville show which is now a Philadelphia winter holiday tradition.