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The Post-Standard News
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September 15, 2004 Appleseed's 'Seeing You' has highs and lows Joan Vadeboncoeur, Entertainment Columnist Theatrical excitement when it comes to mounting a work-in-progress has been in short supply here for many years. But Appleseed Productions is generating excitement with the musical "I'll Be Seeing You," based on the real World War II experiences, romance and subsequent marriage of Syracusan Don Waful. At this point, the cast must feel as if it stood somewhere between Hades and heaven, the result of participating in a project that has emerged as a delightful audience entertainment. Diane Tauser's musical charts the course of officer Don and nurse Cassie from their meeting at a Belfast, Northern Ireland, service personnel dance through the separation when he is taken prisoner in Poland while she awaits the call to the battlefield. Shifting back and forth from Don to Cassie isn't the problem with Tauser's libretto. It is that the book sends them off before their romance, albeit a rapidly escalating one, leaps from their initial encounter to the separation without a build, so that Cassie's impassioned letters don't have the underpinnings needed for a love that is to die for. Once, the book does go back, but the scene needs to come earlier. Another major problem rests with Don's character. He's a musician, but little is revealed about that. Worse, his fellow POWs are such an arresting, if stereotyped, group, that they receive more attention than Don. At least 10 minutes has been excised since the show played in Philadelphia, which is to the good. However, some of the cuts may have caused the shift off Don and the development of the love story. A fresh examination should be made of the book. As a composer and lyricist, Tauser delivers handsomely with a score that is diverse and tuneful and, occasionally, stirring and poetic. Director Jon Wilson has assembled one of the finest casts ever for Appleseed, starting with Dani Gottuso as Cassie. Currently, Casey J. Ryan is suffering Don's script lapse since the prison sequences shift the focus away from him and onto the others. Wilson has made the most of the stage to move his characters with ease from country to country and from hospital to prison camp. At Sunday's matinee, several gaffes in lines were apparent, and some of the singing was less than it ought to have been. But these are diligent, talented people who should be right on target when the show resumes Friday. Copyright © 2004 The Post-Standard. |
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