Originally published 11/25/09
Simple joie de vivre can be among the most subversive of human characteristics. Such is the lesson of Harvey, which bowed this week at the Santa Paula Theater Center, a farcical romp with a deft comedic touch that entirely disguises its stinging social commentary.
Harvey offers the tale of Elwood P. Dowd, played with winning charm by John Reinhart, a man of unfailing good cheer who runs afoul of the moral code for his friendship with the tale’s namesake, who happens to be a 6-foot-tall invisible white rabbit. Elwood is pleased to introduce his pal to any and all — and since nobody else can see the creature, they assume the worst of Elwood’s faculties.
Principal among his detractors are his sister and niece, who posit that if they can simply commit the man to the dubious embrace of the sanitarium, they can erase the stigma of madness from their social ambitions even as they gain control of the family’s abundant estate. While the ladies bring their own agendas to the alliance (sister Veta, played with hilarious patrician mania by Jill Dolan, wishes to be counted among the upper crust, and niece Myrtle Mae, endowed with lascivious mischief by Allison Williams, is simply hot to trot), they are unified by the singular notion that Harvey, whether real or imagined, must go.
But the eponymous cottontail seems to inspire a mischief and havoc that upsets convention at every turn so that the strictures of society and sanitarium fall not upon Ellwood at all, even as they are turned back upon those who would wield them with such zeal. Before the last curtain, Ellwood’s — and Harvey’s — charms proffer a blessing not only to the company at large, but to the roomy house beyond the Santa Paula Theater Center’s noble proscenium.
A favorite on both the boards and the big screen for decades, Harvey made its bow on Broadway in 1944, winning American playwright Mary Chase the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Perhaps best known for the 1950 film starring James Stewart, the work still bears the stamp of postwar American optimism, that singular Capra-esqe blend of deep thought and good cheer. From a heavier hand the secret desires of the supporting cast might come across as altogether sinister — especially in motivating the censure of Elwood’s simple sweetness — but Chase’s tone is quite ably maintained by the sure sensibility and deft comic timing of director Andrea Tate, who keeps things moving along in brisk and bright mayhem.
She has ample help from the company’s stellar cast — especially in Reinhart, who embodies Elwood’s pure heart with a winning smile that lands all the way to the back row, and in Dolan’s Vita who, despite indignation and outrage, proves that Elwood’s heart is a family affair. Also noteworthy are Ronald Rezac, whose unimpeachable voice of authority in Doctor Chumley cannot stand before Harvey’s good humor and whose undoing gives the actor a very broad palette from which to work; Jennifer Ridgeway and Peter Krause, as sanitarium colleagues and star-crossed lovers; and newcomer Tim Viramontes as Orderly Wilson, a thoughtful brute styled straight out of Looney Toons.
Among Harvey’s company, Ellwood alone lives a life of openness and truth — and if his truth challenges that of his contemporaries, what of it? For, as is too common in this world, each of them steps to the tune of his or her own desires, even if such are kept deep under wraps and thus rendered in hues altogether darker than they merit. Boiled down to a one-liner, Harvey’s lesson comes to us from no less a pedigreed source than the Bard himself, who long ago reminded us “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not be false to any man.” In the end, whether Harvey is a magical creature or mere figment, the lesson holds — as true today as ever it was.
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