Light up the Sky

Thursday evening, Chris and I attended Quad C Theatre‘s recent production, Light up the Sky by Moss Hart. According to the Quad C site, the play

is a delightful comedy that revolves around a group of New York theatre-folk who attend the opening of their new play in Boston. The lead actress, the backer, and several others, are in seventh heaven at the prospect of a tremendous success which they hope for in the work of a young unknown writer. Gathered in a hotel room, these people go through their paces with tremendous gusto and many exhibitions of temperament. The opening of the play, which is a very earnest and experimental work, is such as to lead the cast, director and backer to believe it a flop. Instantly they turn against themselves, the production and the author… and savagely proceed to destroy themselves and all their former hopes.

It turns out, however, that in spite of the curious reception by the first night audience, the play has made a deep impression, and when news spreads that the reviews are on the whole favorable, the tables are turned. But the playwright who has suffered both from the enthusiasm and pessimism of his associates has decided that he is through with the theater, and he is captured by the backer only at the moment he is about to take a plane back home. He is persuaded to play ball with his associates, but he is so disgusted with the temperamental shenanigans of those who were presumably his friends that he now turns on them.

The play was very good — well as good as two sickies could enjoy the play. The lead character of Irene Livingston (played by Lindsay Neinast), was one of those appalling, shallow, and self-absorbed people, who would “darling” this and “bless you” that. Ms. Neinast did a remarkable job at bring this character to life, and I am constantly astounded about the quality of the productions produced by the Quad C Theatre (yes, they do spell it the correct way!). I kept thinking that her portrayal of the character was based on Katharine Hepburn’s in one of her movies (the name escapes me).

While the main part of the play was very entertaining, during the beginning of each act (there were three acts) there was kind of a keystone cops routine between the maids and some visiting Shriners attending a convention. Mildly entertaining, but a little confusing (to me at least).

The next play is in March (Don’t Rock the Jukebox)), and I’m looking forward to this live Jukebox performance.

Update: Thanks the filmography knowledge held by Brian, the movie I was thinking of with Katharine Hepburn is The Philadelphia Story.