Courtesy of Off the Wall
The Off The Wall Theatre opens 2015 with Dale Gutzman’s stage adaptation of the cult classic film Valley of the Dolls. The show pieces together scattered bits of comedy and drama in an often pleasantly disorienting package. A huge cast and a lot of vintage costuming has been lovingly crammed into Off The Wall’s tiny studio theater. It’s an ambitious project. Gutzman’s comedy misses just as often as it hits, but the overall atmosphere of fun keeps the whole thing from sinking.
As a director, Gutzman’s triumph here lies in bringing a beloved so-bad-it’s-good film to the stage with a steady balance between heartfelt drama and campy comedy. The ostensibly gritty story of unstable life in show business finds a real emotional center in a central cast of women played by men in drag. J. F. Priesz is a dramatic presence as Broadway veteran Helen Lawson. Mark Hagen plays more to the comic end of things as a sweetly sympathetic girl trying to get along in the big city. The rest of the principal cast plays it somewhere in between, with Jeremy C. Welter weaving uneasily between serious and comic tones as a train wreck of a woman and Patrick McCann following suit as a woman who considers her only talent to be her body.
Gutzman does an excellent job of filling the tiny stage with a large cast. There’s some genuine charm in the supporting cast. Jacqueline Roush cleverly plays straight-faced comedy as the sister of a struggling actor. Alejandra Gonzalez is fun in a number of supporting comic roles in and around the edges of the story.
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Off The Wall Theatre’s Valley Of The Dolls runs through Jan. 11 at 127 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 414-484-8874.
