Stage

What karaoke is to the music business, interactive theater is to the stage. Without any time wasted on demanding elocution lessons or boring, repetitive rehearsals, anyone sitting in the audience, male or female, fat or skinny, can be right up there in the action. And not just as a walk-on, plinking out the accompaniment to "Heart and Soul" or giving Ophelia's scream in The Complete Works of Wm. Shakespeare (Abridged). This time two suspects plucked from their chairs are there for the duration of 21/2 hours, wearing masks and costumes, ad-libbing lines and toasting the happy ending. Jeff Wirth of Florida put the thing together, named it The Antics of Romantics, and it's Appleseed Productions' season finale.

In helpful program notes, director Greg J. Hipius explains that seeing a production of Antics in the early 1990s was the most fun he ever had in live theater. Hipius' mounting of the show for Appleseed in spring 2001 brought in standing-room-only crowds. So the current version can justly advertise itself as having been brought back by popular demand.

The scenario, what there is of it, derives from commedia dell'arte, as the five prepared characters all have Italian names that tip us off to what they are about. Signora Prestigio is a wealthy, powerful woman who wants her daughter to marry a self-important but prominent buffoon, Capitano Fanfarone. Several household retainers intervene, including the dancer Rosetta, leering Lasivio and the faithful Fidello. The important roles of the daughter and her put-upon true love are pulled anew from the audience for each show.

All the fixed players are company regulars accustomed to playing off each other. As Rosetta, Natalie Wilson (formerly Galvin) is the recent bride of Appleseed artistic director Jon Wilson. The diminutive but imperious Binaifer Dabu, a frequent Syracuse Area Live Theater Award nominee, underplays the dominant mother role; her Prestigio is almost the only straight person in the cast. Rotund William E. White as the comic villain Fanfarone, a combination of Falstaff and Sheridan Whiteside, sets the tone for many of the others, with the broadest of delivery and body language. Also aboard: Mark Allen Holt as Lasivio and Brian Hensley playing Fidello. Musicians David Sabin and Leigh Scheuerman are well rehearsed for five prewritten musical numbers, but are quick on the uptake when inserting musical gags.

A program note advises, "No one is going to carry you kicking and screaming onto the stage," yet we're also told early on that if there are no volunteers, the show will grind to a halt. Other than the romantic leads, there's a need for a number of other teensy roles, from cops to a pack of barking dogs. No matter where you sit, rehearsed supporting players, called Proteans, will come by your table with balloons, or stand by like cheerleaders making sure you join in the singing of songs like "Happy Unbirthday."

As the audience is literally a big part of the show, performances can vary widely from one night to the next. The ad-libs also tend to treat of Pirates of the Caribbean and Johnny Depp's role in it. When your reviewer asked a Protean at intermission if any of this had been scripted, he responded that, "Tomorrow it could be The Pirates of Solvay."

Given that playwright Wirth is on the staff of the University of Central Florida, there's something about the enterprise that feels like a cruise ship. Instead of audience members shedding inhibitions by drinking pastel-colored rum drinks with paper umbrellas in them, however, the cozy, unthreatening basement of Atonement Lutheran Church, Appleseed's stomping grounds, offers free coffee and desserts at intermission.

This production runs through May 20. See Times Table for information.
-James MacKillop