Hand it to the people at Dominion Stage: They don't produce the same shows every other community theater seems to be putting on. They make a concerted effort to find unique and offbeat but high quality material. Given limited resources, they rely on the quality of the material to give audiences a reason to seek them out.
Their latest is certainly a case-in-point, presenting a chamber musical with just six characters: Two of them are dead and one is a bird. She is a raven, actually, which accounts for the laugh when she pronounces "Nevermore."
The setting of "A Fine & Private Place" is a cemetery in the Bronx where a 34-year-old man has just been buried. He learns that a cemetery is a place where the spirits of the deceased remain until they are ready to let go of their temporal lives. Also "at rest" in the cemetery is a woman who is much further along in her adjustment to the afterlife than is he. The complicating factor is that they fall in love while waiting for whatever is to come.
Being a musical, and following at least one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's formulas for a successful musical, there is a subplot of another couple. In this case, it is a live man who lives in the cemetery because he has a gift for communicating with the dead, and finds that he can be of service by explaining the process to the newly departed. He normally stays out of the sight of live people, but a widow spies him on one of her visits to her husband's grave and they strike up an acquaintance that quickly deepens.
THE STORY IS told through short scenes and 18 songs, each of which has enough melodic inventiveness to be interesting, although none really sticks with you after the cast has finished singing it. The music is by Richard Isen, who provides a semi-folk feeling to his compositions, while the lyrics are by Erik Haagensen, who also wrote the script for the show based on a novel by Peter S. Beagle.
The show dates to the late 1980s, but its themes of life and loss and the immortality of love are timeless. The plot twist in the second act, which won't be revealed here, adds a heft to the piece that keeps it from being too treacley.
THE PRINCIPAL COUPLE is played by Brian Lukas and Elizabeth Hester. Lukas displays more ease in his on-stage presence than anyone else in the cast, and both he and Hester sing well. The show would work better if there was a touch more chemistry between them, but the gentlest and sweetest moment of
the show is theirs. It comes when the lovers finally admit their attraction and attempt to touch. Being dead, no contact can actually occur, but they engage in a charming pantomime of an embrace.
Jon Roberts brings a full, rich voice to the role of their guide to the afterlife. He is a bit stiff in his body language as he delivers his songs, but the sound he generates is marvelous. Janice Zucker handles the role of the widow who sets her sights on him. She and Kathy Keating as "The Raven" provide some light comedy for the piece.
Here's hoping that Dominion keeps coming up with new and interesting material such as this.
Brad Hathaway reviews theater in Virginia, Washington and Maryland as well as Broadway, and edits Potomac Stages, a Web site covering theater in the region (www.PotomacStages.com). He can be reached at Brad@PotomacStages.com.