A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine

One cast performs two one-act musicals in Skylight Opera Theatre’s production of A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. The show opens as a celebration of classic Hollywood musicals, then gives way to a second act inspired by Anton Chekhov’s 19th-century farce The Bear. The twist is that it’s done in the style of a stage musical featuring the Marx Brothers. Jivoff and Moses play Harpo and Groucho, respectively. The Marx Brothers are, in turn, playing roles in the story, which actually makes a lot of sense, because much of their work was commedia dell’arte by way of vaudeville. The Marx Brothers played themselves playing characters in their films, so allowing others to also play those vaudevillian characters is fair play.