Beck Center mines country gold with musical of Eudora Welty's "Robber Bridegroom"

Beck Center for the Arts mines country gold with an immersive bluegrass-flavored Broadway take on one of novelist Eudora Welty's most popular short stories (from 1942), "The Robber Bridegroom." Originally workshopped and directed by Lorain's Gerald Freedman (also former Great Lakes Theater artistic director) for a successful 1976 Broadway run (following regional, off-Broadway and touring productions), "The Robber Bridegroom" remains one of the lamentably absent shows to be revived on major Cleveland area stages after a Cleveland Play House production about four decades ago. With an enchantingly evocative country score by Robert Waldman, matched with witty lyrics and a crafty book/script by Alfred Uhry, the show spins a fetching, jovially absurd yarn about a Robin Hood styled gentleman bandit in a land that seems half Appalachia, half Mississippi Delta, He wins the heart of the daughter of a (comparatively) wealthy landowner and together they fend off a variety of more sinister yet hapless thieves and a conniving stepmother who wouldn't mind being free of her husband and stepdaughter, one way or another. The show itself -- which seems a canny precursor to the more recent country musical "Shucked" -- seems good enough to weather a lesser company than Beck Center, but it would be hard to find a better company to master the tonally perfect blend of Broadway and Grand Ole Opry needed for this show. Scenic designer Trad Burns conjured up a magically evocative show-within-a-show environment that's part honkytonk, part everything else, from forbidding woods, to a gentry home, to a sleazy hotel. Larry Goodpaster masters the spirited country music, performed as a spirited country band on the honkytonk stage in the background. Jenniver Sparano's costumes ingeniously envelopes two time periods -- the present-day introduction of the actors and the 19th-century lost world of the original short story. The cast brilliantly grasps the folktale humor with only the slightest tinge of sophisticated self-awareness -- particularly Nic Rhew as the titular character, Izzy Baker as his dewey, dopey love interest, Ruby Moncrieff-Karten as the overbearing mother-in-law (named an hysterically mispronounced Salome) and Seth Crawford, the mentally challenged bumpkin who helps set the comic trajectory into motion in pursuit of a suckling pig. As with many environmental productions, the cast comes in and out of all corners of the intimate Beck Studio Theater, which could become assaultive and confusing. Fortunately, the show's director and long-time artistic director Scott Spence proves he knows his way around potentially cumbersome ensemble productions. But what elevates this production well above Cleveland's Play House's well received version is the seemingly magical infectious choreography and staging by Lauren Marousek. It's a celebration of constantly transforming stage images and tapping toes. Small surprise that many of the audience members wish to join everyone on stage. Contact Howard Gollop at howieeg@gmail.com.