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Billy Crocker worth ‘Crowe’ing about
Kim Johnson - Thu, Jul, 24, 2008
There was mayhem on the high seas Sunday, July 20, as Tennessee Valley Players wrapped up its theatrical run of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” at The University of Tennessee School of Music’s Grace Moore Theatre.
With an ode to theater’s motto “The show must go on” the community theater group overcame serious technical issues, such as a lack of air conditioning and the loss of several stage lights, through no fault of its own, to give the audience a show well worth sitting through the stifling heat.
Set in the 1930s aboard the S.S. Americana, enroute from New York to London, the musical weaves several external plots into the story of Billy Crocker, a young up-and-coming stockbroker in love with debutante Hope Harcourt, who happens to be engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in order to save herself and her mother from a turn of bad luck that has left them penniless.
Also on board are ex-evangelist turned nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and gangster Moonface Mooney and his friend, Erma.
Kevin Crowe was excellent as Billy Crocker. The audience was immediately drawn to the lovelorn Crocker, whom Crowe played as sympathetic yet determined. One never doubted that, in the end, he would overcome whatever obstacles came his way to win Hope’s affection.
However, Catherine Greer’s interpretation of Hope left me hoping director Edmund Bolt had changed the ending and that, for Billy’s sake, he didn’t get the girl.
Greer’s singing voice was lovely and her acting spot on, but I wanted to see a little more vulnerability in Hope.
I realize the character was written to be a bit whiney, but I wanted to see glimpses of the young girl torn between true love and family loyalty. Instead I felt Hope was spoiled and somewhat of a gold digger herself.
Deana Stanley played a perfect Reno Sweeney, giving even Ethel Merman’s Reno a run for her money. Her one-liners had perfect comedic timing and her voice was amazing.
For me Kevin Smathers, as Moonface Martin, stole the show. His “bumbling criminal” was played perfectly while managing to make the audience sympathetic to his plight to move up the public enemy list from number 13 to number one.
Between Reno and Moonface, Billy’s willingness to break any rule to get the girl and Jessica Mirshak’s excellent portrayal of Erma, the scandalous mobster girlfriend, the lines between right and wrong were spectacularly blurred, just as the show intended.
This will most definitely not be the last Tennessee Valley Players show I attend.
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