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City of Angels (now onstage at the black box Allen Bales Theatre) starts like a typical film noir: a mysterious dame goes to a private eye for help. This wealthy and alluring woman, Alaura Kingsley (Emmett Smith), offers the investigator, Stone (Michael Luwoye), a great deal of money, and, despite his misgivings, he agrees to take her case. As the mystery female leaves the private eye’s office, she defiantly flings off an insult and storms out the door. Suddenly, she stops walking, reverses her steps, and gives her parting words again—but this time with a different set of words.

With this unexpected rewritten dialogue, the audience’s attention moves from the film noir characters to another figure on stage—a writer (Russell Stephens) hunched over his typewriter and furiously rewriting the scene the audience has just witnessed. The audience quickly realizes that City of Angels is not one story, but two. In one, the film noir, Stone is hired to find Mallory Kingsley (Hannah Watson), the daughter of a wealthy magnate and the stepdaughter of his much younger wife Alaura. In the other, the writer Stine tries to write this story about Stone into a screenplay for the demanding Hollywood director Buddie (Cooper Kennard). As the story progresses, the audience learns that Stine bases many of his characters on figures in his own life: Stone’s lost love Bobbi mirrors Stine’s wronged wife Gabby (both played by Jessica Berzack). Stone’s “Girl Friday,” Oolie (Marianne McConnell, who also choreographed the show), echoes Donna, Stine’s mistress. As Stine navigates the parties of glittering Hollywood, he also meets the actors who will play his characters—most of whom also play the characters in his imaginings of his developing screenplay. And, if these layers were not enough, this show (directed by Karen Baker) is also a musical (with book by Larry Gelbert, music by Cy Coleman, and lyrics by David Zippel).

Joshua Witt’s scenic design, simple but versatile art deco windows, captures this production’s multi-leveled world particularly well. In the first scenes between Stone and Alaura, the large art deco windows serve as the walls of Stone’s office. The windows play multiple roles throughout the production—walls in apartments, the Kingsley mansion windows, and prison bars for the framed Stone. The art deco style captures both the film noir and glittering Hollywood.

Like Witt’s scenic design, many of the cast members in this University of Alabama play multiple roles in these parallel worlds. The cast does an admirable job navigating between the two plots and their characters as well as singing and dancing. The strongest portions of this performance are those that are sung—Stephens has a strong voice, and complements Luwoye particularly well; their voices reverberate throughout the theatre in the duet that closes the first act, “You’re Nothing Without Me.” As Bobbi, Berzack sings a sultry ballad, “With Every Breath I Take,” with a silky, rich tone. Nick Rashad Burroughs nearly takes down the house with his spirited salsa dancing, high kicks, and vocal pyrotechnics in “All You Have To Do Is Wait.”

Unfortunately, while the singing is impressive, the acting is somewhat flat. Stephens does not give much life to Stine; he should seemingly be conflicted over the changes Bobby demands to his story, but he does not always show it in his acting. He delivers most of his lines in the same monotone register. While he does start fighting for himself late in the production, when he may lose his wife Gabbi and the creative power over Stone, it is a bit shocking to an audience who has not seen any real variation in his line delivery. Luwoye’s performance evokes the gumshoes of old movies, but the way in which he delivers all lines with the same tough-guy, Humphrey Bogart-like drawl can get tiresome. Luwoye works so hard to make sure that Stone comes across as a detective undeterred by beatings or threats that his even delivery ultimately makes him uninteresting. Like Stine, Stone gives the audience little reason for interest. Their symbiotic characters work well together—particularly when the creation talks back to the creator—but individually the performances are limited.

Similarly, affected accents provide some of the biggest hurdles in the production. While Kennard plays Buddy as a golden age Hollywood director and producer, his 1940s Hollywood accent can get a little grating, much as Stone’s accent can be boring. While Burroughs deserves great credit for his impressive performance in “All You Have To Do Is Wait,” he is virtually incomprehensible as the Spanish-accented Munoz when he speaks his lines.

Despite the flat acting performances, City of Angels’ multifaceted plot does provide an enjoyable experience as it navigates between the lives of the creator and his creation. While one would hope for more character and variation in some of the acting, the singing and dancing—not to mention the scenic design—make City of Angels an interesting experience in the layers of theatre.

~aferretti

The University of Alabama’s production of City of Angels runs through November 13th. For more information, please visit UA’s Department of Theatre & Dance webpage.