"Annie" at Berkeley Playhouse

Berkeley Playhouse photo

We went to see Berkeley Playhouse's production of the musical Annie last week, in part because we like to support this theater, in part because our daughter was having a reunion there with much of the cast of last summer's Teen Stage production of Assassins, and in part because we know the actress who was scheduled to play the lead role that night. Unfortunately, cold-and-flu-season knocked out our preferred actor, but one of the other actors was on site and stepped right into the role.

The Play

Remarkably, though I remember when this show first came out in the 1980s, I never saw it. I certainly heard the big musical number ("Tomorrow") enough times to feel like I had. Based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip characters, the play follows the titular character from Miss Hannigan's orphanage to the home of wealthy Oliver Warbucks, with plenty of visits from the president and various low-lifes.

Unlike all the other orphans in the orphanage, Annie holds out hope that she's not actually an orphan, just a kid that was left by her parents (with a note saying how much they loved her) temporarily until they could come back to pick her up. And they left her with half of a broken pendant that she always wears, knowing her parents will return with the other half, thereby identifying themselves. Of course, she was left as an infant, and is now 11 years old. In the middle of the Great Depression.

But Annie has an unconquerable positive attitude. You know: "The sun will come out tomorrow," etc. So she keeps trying to escape the orphanage to find her parents. She does get out one night, and visits a Hooverville shanty town where she claims a stray dog who would otherwise be taken to the pound and put to sleep. But she's soon rounded up and returned to the orphanage, where she manages to sneak the dog in somehow.

So things aren't going so great, but we get some song and dance numbers out it anyway. Then unannounced, billionaire Warbucks' secretary arrives at the orphanage to sort of borrow an orphan for a couple of weeks at Christmastime. Because Annie happens to be in the room at the time, she charms her way into being selected, and off she goes to spend a couple of weeks in the lap of luxury, stopping off for new clothes at a fancy boutique to get new clothes on the way.

Next stop, Oliver Warbucks' home, with a large staff and all the trimmings. Warbucks seems oddly nonplussed by the presence of the orphan he apparently recruits every year. Or maybe this is just the first time he's done this. Anyway, it's no more implausible than the rest, so just go with it. Because you need to save some suspension of disbelief for our visit to the Oval Office where an incessantly positive outlook turns out to be just what the president and his cabinet were lacking in their efforts to tackle the depression.

By various twists, Annie ends up on a hugely popular national radio show, telling the story of how her parents are missing, and suddenly hundreds are lined up outside Warbucks' home to claim her (and the $50,000 reward he has offered). Unsurprisingly, none of them know about the locket thing, and are pretty quickly turned away. But of course Miss Hannigan's brother, the con man, senses a chance to snag the reward, so goes to claim her, armed with the inside info from Miss Hannigan.

I'll just stop before I spoil the mega-happy ending, OK?

Suffice it to say that I find the plot of this show, while rather fascinating, somewhat less plausible than most, and that's saying a lot. But it has some catchy tunes and is relentlessly upbeat, even when it seems like it shouldn't be. So how could it fail to be popular?

The Production

I appreciate the quality of the productions put on at Berkeley Playhouse. They always seem to have imaginative and appropriate sets and costumes. For example, the New York City scenes are pretty much cartoon skyscrapers. Similarly, Warbucks' house looks like it came right off the comics page, right down to the portrait of him over the mantel. The evocation of the show's comic-strip origins is quite effective.

Before I go farther, I also have to give full appreciation to Miranda Long, the actor who had to fill in as Annie at the last moment. For the lead role, Playhouse had cast three actors (Long, Josie Dooley, and Sophia Gilbert) who work in a scheduled rotation. So it's not as if they had an unprepared understudy step in. But still, finding out literally minutes before curtain that you're going on stage has to be a bit daunting, but Long was terrific. We were disappointed not to get to see Dooley, but we were not disappointed in the quality of the performance overall.

And I will add that in addition to rotating three Annies, they also have two sets of orphans who alternate as well. We saw the "Park Avenue" group, and were impressed with them all. They have a lot of stage time, songs, dances, and individual lines, and they were all well up to the task. And bonus points for not being phased when the dog playing Sandy (Gaston) decided to...er..."sing" along with one of their numbers. Quite impressive.

The adults did a good job, too. Michael RJ Campbell, the only union actor in the cast, carries Warbucks quite well, and Melinda Meeng as his secretary, Grace Farrell, is charming and warm. Billy Raphael as Drake, the butler, brought a lot of personality to what could be a quite dry role. My only qualm was with the framing narrative that takes the form of a radio show. The host, Bert Healy (Ted Zoldan), manages to be a bit over the top, even by the standards of this comic strip on stage.

But on the whole the production values are solid. I quite appreciated the livery costumes on the Warbucks house staff, and the singing Boylan Sisters (Andrea Dennison-Laufer, Megan McGrath, and Ashley Garlick) look and sound sharp.

Bottom Line

For a small, relatively new (ten years now) theater company, Berkeley Playhouse manages to put together really high-quality productions. The fact that they are able to integrate so many young members of the local community is a tribute both to the organization as a whole and to the conservatory program they run that trains children and teens, obviously producing actors who are quite capable of taking part in a professional production.

As you'll have gathered from my comments, I think the show is a bit silly, even by the standards of musical theater. On the other hand, it's fun to watch and it clearly appeals to a broad audience. There were lots of children in the mostly-full house for the night we saw the show, and that's a great thing.

Annie runs through January 23rd, so you still have a few chances to see it.