'Annie Get Your Gun' is good, but aiming for better

First, the good news.

The songs in "Annie Get Your Gun" are among the best Broadway ever produced, and the cast in The Acting Company's current version of it strives mightily to render a reasonable facsimile of them.

Candee Jensen headlines the show as Annie Oakley, the sharp-shooting sweetheart who captured the world's heart in the late Victorian period and early 20th century.

Jensen's voice, acting and dance talents are gifts local theater-goers are lucky to get for only a $15 admission price.

Anthony Dost as Annie's competing marksman and love interest, Frank Butler, Mark Johnson as Charlie Davenport, Gary Conover as Buffalo Bill and Stephanie Balmer as Dolly Tate all work hard at bringing to life tunes Irving Berlin penned 62 years ago.

Their pleasing voices add significantly to the show's overall quality.

Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts dancers also add to the show. They include Kathryn Brown, Anastacia Makris, Brittani Bowers, Trey Nelson, Justin Chamness, plus recent MCAA graduate Lucas Blair (a.k.a. Lucas Ledbetter).

Many musicals linger in popular memory because of a few hummable tunes, but nearly all of the songs in "Annie Get Your Gun" are now American standards. "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," "The Girl That I Marry," "My Defenses are Down," "I Got the Sun in the Morning," "An Old-fashioned Wedding," "They Say It's Wonderful" and "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" quickly spring to mind.

Their first few notes, a line or two, often summon old memories, some chuckles, even the occasional tear or two.

The show-stopper, "There's No Business like Show Business (Like No Business I Know)," has become the national anthem of American musical theater.

Overall, this current production adds yet another line and a little more luster to director Pierrette Jensen's credits.

Now, the not so good news.

One of Annie Oakley's contemporaries was Will Rogers, who rose from a trick rider and roper in Texas Jack's Wild West Circus to become an international star in vaudeville and movies. His opening line on his Depression-era radio show was, "All I know is what I read in the newspapers."

Well, here in Theaterland, all I know is what I see on the stage and this is what I saw at "Annie Get Your Gun."

The cast was too big for a stage too small. The show ran too long. Too many set changes took too much time. The sets were cheap. The lighting lacked imagination.

I would have said, "Shoot the piano player," but there was no piano player. The music was canned. The canning process homogenized it into murmurings that were more electronic than orchestral, leaving it too low, too slow and too anonymously murky.

As I listened, I searched for a term to describe this artificial soundtrack. Two words floated up: "Elevator music!"

There are cost considerations community theater producers must keep in balance, but there are more creative options than substituting off-the-shelf music-like noises on a CD for a live 13-piece orchestra.

The set had many unnecessary elements. Most notably the smiley-face sun and crescent moon that stagehands kept putting up and taking down. More imaginative use of lighting would solve this problem. Spotlighting the singer on a darkened stage would make it night. Bringing up the stage lights would make it day.

The cast is not to blame for any of this. The cast performed well. The players hit their marks, knew their lines and put their hearts into their parts in the best tradition.

Program notes listed 31 cast members. I counted 33 people in the audience. Subtract me and the lucky fiancé of one of the prettiest women in the cast and the number in the audience equals the number in the cast. Not a good sign.

Worse, the show is contracted to run for another three weeks, and the audience is unlikely to swell. What to do, what to do?

The show could be smartened up by cutting out unnecessary scenes and trimming the content to a revue format that highlights the music and the singers. People go to musicals for the singing and the strutting, not the storyline and acting.

For starters, ax the hotel manager introduction. Scrub "Moonshine Lullaby" and "Snake Dance." Discard the "Indian Ceremonial" bit with its "I'm an Indian, Too" song. Not because they are bad, you understand, but because they are just gratuitous padding.

Next, put more thought into eliminating set changes. Stage hands shuffling furniture and retrieving props only slow up the show and break the actors' magic spell.

How slow? The current show is three hours long, including intermission. Some in the audience were visibly fidgeting. Others seemed to be dozing.

The cuts mentioned, plus speeding up the dialogue could slim the show down by 20-25 minutes, at least. They would also shrink the cast to its best players, maybe 15 or so.

More effective in the long run would be to put more money into the best actors and the best sets and best production values. That would ultimately boost attendance and help the shows pay for themselves — maybe even make a profit. Nevada City's Foothill Theatre Company did it that way. So can The Acting Company.

Award-winning journalist and author Tom Nadeau has written for and acted on stage, screen, radio and television. Write to him at theaterland@gmail.com