Review by
Guest Critic:
Saratoga Ballantine
THE MANOR
Simply arriving at Greystone is the start of a unique theatrical experience!
Walking from the parking lot to the mansion I began to get goosebumps. To think that a family actually lived here in this astounding mansion and what their lives must have been like stirs the imagination before the audience is even seated.
“The Manor” is in its 19th season, and is a fictionalization based on real events that occurred in the mansion over 95 years ago. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.
The audience is brought in to the elegantly furnished living room, by James, the Butler, convincingly played by the elegant and well spoken David Hunt Stafford.
It’s the late 1920’s and a wedding party is going on in full swing.
The wealthy patriarch of the McAlister family, Charles (played with proper pomposity by Darby Hinton) is happily leading Prohibition toasts of “ice tea” (wink wink nudge nudge) up the wazoo, and is the proud father of the groom, played here with grace and charm by Peter Mastne. Abby, his blushing bride (beautiful Nathalie Rudolph) is giddiness personified, especially when she spots the handsome Gregory Pugh (Eric Keitel) who has returned to the manor as a guest at the celebration.
The wonderful conceit of the play is that the audience is now divided into three parts, and depending upon which group you are in- you are led by either James, or Ursula, the Housekeeper (played with great energy and spirit by Katyana Rocker-Cook) or the silent maid, Ellie, (essayed by the creative and sprightly Gail Johnston, who uses dinner bells and arm gestures to signal the audience when it’s time to move to the next room.
Getting caught up in the inciting incident, which depicts momentous changes in the family fortune, I learned was based on surrogates of the oil-rich Doheny Family. Charles makes an illegal, though well intentioned loan to Senator Alfred Winston (strongly played by Daniel Leslie with “good ‘ol boy” panache). Winston is based on the then Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall. Both men will face imminent disgrace in the oncoming Teapot Dome bribery scandal which brought down the Warren Harding administration, because the loan was made with cash, and there was no proper record. The family's close friend and lawyer, John Combs, (Frank Parsons) does all he can to help, but Charles McAlister is in too deep.
Abby meanwhile seems more than ready to lose her virginity, and we are privy to an intimate glimpse into her boudoir as she prepares to receive the gifts of womanhood while the wedding party is still merrily going on in other parts of the mansion! Thank heavens her Mother- in- Law (an honest and surely once dazzling Carol Potter) happens to come into the bedroom to put the kibosh on this wreckless behavior just in the nick of time.
The fly in the ointment is that Abby, while loving her new husband, also has very strong feelings for Gregory Pugh, who has been away and has returned to the Manor with his new over-sexed and tarty wife (raucously played by Kristin Rowers-Rowles)
After a brief intermission, the audience returns to the main living room and the time is now 10 years later.
Lots more action in Act 2, as the family status and fortune is in ruins. The wife of Senator Winston, Cora (played with great sympathy and humor by Amy Tolsky) has a touching scene with Mrs. McAlister. She is not unaware of her husband’s slimy motives.
I really can't reveal the highlight of Act 2, but the shocking events only go to drive home the lesson that having money and status really does not bring one happiness in life.
Crew:
Sound design: Bill Froggatt
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