Ken Ludwig comedy 'Moon Over Buffalo' now playing at Thousand Oaks High School
By Cary Ginell soundthink@aol.com

TOHS STARS- - Trevor Toth-Tevel and Brooke Fiss play George and Charlotte Hay in the Thousand Oaks High School presentation of "Moon Over Buffalo."

Ken Ludwig's "Moon Over Buffalo" is one of 14 plays written by the internationally known playwright, a number of which have become staples of high school and college theater groups. Like many of Ludwig's works, "Buffalo," which made its debut in 1996, reflects his love for comedy, and this wild and noisy farce has been embraced by the students in Thousand Oaks High School's Department of Theatre in its current run through May 19.

The story focuses on George and Charlotte Hay, a battling husbandandwife acting team struggling to retain their fan base in 1953, when television was threatening live theater's popularity. The play takes place backstage during a repertory company's alternating productions of "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Private Lives" (the latter, by Noel Coward, is a favorite of Ludwig's), although the characters can't seem to get straight which one of them is to be performed. The cause of this mixup is Charlotte's dotty, hearingimpaired stage mother, Ethel, who is selective about what she wants to hear.

As Ethel, the diminutive Jennifer Foster is marvelously crotchety. With her gray wig and affected accent, she sounds like Hermione Baddeley, who played similar old biddies in film, TV and in the theater.

Playing the other roles was more difficult for the high school thespians, who had to convince the audience of their varying ages and character studies without using extensive makeup.

George and Charlotte are meant to be middle-aged actors on the precipice of their decline, and Charlotte, for one, is determined to make it any way she can. The irascible, whiskeyloving George, however, wants to stick to theater, despite the tempting possibility of appearing in a Frank Capradirected film version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel."

As George, Trevor Toth-Tevel is an effective physical comedian, and his furious and frequent rages are very funny to watch. At one point, the script calls for him to fall off the stage, no small feat as it was at least a 4-foot drop. Brooke Fiss, who plays Charlotte (a role made famous by Carol Burnett), has equally manic moments in her quarrels with George, and the pair's opening mock duel as Cyrano and Roxanne was deliciously done.

Tara Malenfant is wonderful as George and Charlotte's daughter, Rosalind, an actress who wants to get out of the business and settle down. Similarly dysfunctional, Rosalind is torn between two lovers- the nerdy, star-struck Howard (who can't remember his own name when under stress), played by Taylor Bailey, and her ex-boyfriend Paul, played by Dennis Mihalsky. Flitting from one to the other during the play, Malenfant's natural reactions and charm made her performance all the more believable. She is a delight.

The first act is rife with pratfalls, screaming and slamming of doors. The actors had all they could handle just getting down the timing of the frequent entrances and exits, and with the hilarious lines thrown in by Ludwig, it's a wonder the actors didn't break up with laughter.

In Act 2, George's weepy mistress, Eileen (Elise Meyers), realizes she's pregnant by George and puts word of it in Variety¸ causing even greater rancor between George and Charlotte. When Ethel inadvertently spikes George's coffee with alcohol, things really get nutty, and when the cast ends up trying to perform "Private Lives" and "Cyrano" simultaneously, they fail miserably, with uproarious consequences.

The backstage set features anachronistic posters from Broadway shows that had yet to be written in 1953, but this is of little consequence. "Moon Over Buffalo" is a wonderful introduction to the knockabout world of George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, Abe Burrows and other writers of farcical comedy, and director Joseph Donia is to be commended for tackling this difficult but very enjoyable play.

"Moon Over Buffalo" completes its run May 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Thousand Oaks High School Performing Arts Center.

For information, call the school at (805) 495-7491.