SOUTH BEND -- The Acting Ensemble Stage Company’s production of “Meet John Doe” proves that August 2010’s game-changing comeback production of “The Tiernan Affair” wasn’t a fluke.
Revived after a 19-year layoff, The Acting Ensemble gives South Bend a new and serious theater company capable of quality productions of original and unorthodox works that challenge and entertain its audience.
In this case, company founder and artistic director James Geisel adapts Frank Capra’s 1941 Depression-themed “Meet John Doe” into a theatrical script that captures the optimism and naivete of Capra’s style without sounding corny or dated.
But The Acting Ensemble’s production of “Meet John Doe” shares too much in form and style with its production of “The Tiernan Affair” — a Geisel original based on a sensational paternity trial in 1920s South Bend — for it to provide the theatrical jolt and surprise of the earlier production.
In particular, its multi-media aspects and minimalist set — including a back-wall movie screen framed by newspaper clippings and, in this case, Works Progress Administration posters — make such comparisons unavoidable, even though “Meet John Doe” does have strengths that make it a compelling and worthwhile work of theater.
In the film and the play, newspaper columnist Ann Mitchell — just laid off and told to write a final column before leaving — invents “John Doe,” an unemployed man who threatens in a letter to her to commit suicide on Christmas Eve in protest of society’s ills. The column creates a sensation, and the newspaper scrambles to find a real John Doe to play the role in public.
John Willoughby, a baseball pitcher with an injured elbow who has been living as a tramp, applies for the job and is hired in exchange for money and surgery to fix his arm. Willoughby’s friend and traveling companion, The Colonel, objects, while the newspaper’s owner, D.B. Norton, sees political opportunity if he manipulates John Doe correctly.
As Willoughby/Doe, Anthony Panzica gives a multifaceted performance, often with his expression and movements, from the hangdog look he wears in his first scene to how he anxiously handles his hat when Willoughby visits Mitchell’s mother, from how he alternates between eager and hesitant while Willoughby hears the newspaper’s pitch to him to the confusion and divided loyalty he seems to feel when a competitor approaches.
Panzica’s charming in his delivery while Willoughby explores his newfound good fortune, and as Willoughby gives Doe’s radio speech, Panzica’s delivery gradually and credibly moves from nervous to confident to passionate, the antithesis of Panzica’s later look of desperation to be heard when he’s betrayed at a political convention.
Nicole Brinkmann Reeves is nuanced as reporter Ann Mitchell. In dealing with Mitchell’s editor, Brinkmann Reeves’ delivery and posture have spunk and confidence, while doubt and guilt take over when Mitchell wrestles with her growing love for Willoughby set against how she’s used him.
She makes Mitchell an engaging storyteller with the sense of fantasy and vitality she gives to delivering Mitchell’s vision for how to capitalize on John Doe, while her facial expressions — how she opens her eyes wide when Mitchell gets a bright idea — communicate the character’s delight and excitement.
Phil Kwiecinski enlivens every scene he’s in as The Colonel, playing him as a humorous and charming curmudgeon dismissive of and disgusted by the world’s materialism. His “heelot” speech strikes an excellent, credible balance between paranoia and zealotry without going overboard with either, while his and Panzica’s mimed game of catch has playful innocence that makes it vivid.
Vincent Bilancio gives the newspaper editor Connell a ’30s tough guy demeanor that works well, particularly with his sharp, dictatorial delivery when Connell lays off Mitchell, while his Boston accent is both convincing and consistent. His drunken scene plays well, with him tipsy but not slurring his words.
Mark Moriarty makes newspaper owner D.B. Norton, pressman Pops Dwyer and the radio announcer individual characters with his vocal delivery and body language, from the stooped shoulders and paternal tone of Dwyer toward Mitchell to the haughty, big “radio” voice of the announcer.
Moriarty allows Norton to evolve from conservative and satisfied businessman to dictatorial and unscrupulous manipulator with both Mitchell and Willoughby.
Of his three characters, Greg Melton’s Bert Hansen — a member of a John Doe Club — acts the most like a Capra salt-of-the-Earth character, with an unsophisticated but animated, gosh-golly delivery.
Rick Ellis gives the pompous mayor a humorous bluster and cowardly quality, while his Beany — Connell’s assistant — maintains a humorous but subtle competition with Kwiecinski’s Colonel.
Melissa Gard plays all of the women in the production, except for Mitchell. The society lady Mrs. Brewster, with her superior tone and imperial bearing, and Connell’s secretary, with her breathless energy, get played entirely and successfully for laughs. But her depiction of Mitchell’s widowed mother gives the character depth and honesty with how she speaks directly with Mitchell and Willoughby and how she handles her late husband’s diary.
Despite the similarity to the set for “The Tiernan Affair,” the material that frames the movie screen does give the production a thematic focal point that roots the action in the 1930s, while platforms that roll on and off the stage efficiently bring out and remove individual scenes’ sets.
Even better, Lois Veen’s exclusive use of black, white and gray for the actors’ costumes perfectly captures the black-and-white look of the original film.
Geisel’s use of footage from the film and stills from the ’30s often visually and atmospherically enhances the minimal set design of the production. But some of the film footage — operators refusing requests for tickets to John Doe’s radio speech, for instance — are awkward and unnecessary and break the rhythm of transition from one pivotal scene to another.
With “And Then They Came for Me” and “Adrift in Macao” still to go in this summer’s season, The Acting Ensemble has the material and actors to continue to make itself a distinctive and valuable voice in local theater. And despite technical similarities to “The Tiernan Affair” and sometimes unnecessary use of Capra’s film footage, “Meet John Doe” proves the company already is doing so.
“Meet John Doe” continues Friday through June 26 at the Little Theatre in the Moreau Center for the Arts at Saint Mary’s College.