What I liked
The cast is superb; the back room at the Three Clubs is perfect as a 1920s dining room. We as the audience are not just watching – we are part of the show and it feels more like eaves dropping than sitting and watching a show. There were times, we almost wanted to get up and go pull up a chair at the table. In fact, throughout the performance audience let out little cries of surprise and delight as the show progressed.
Christine Vlasak is to be complimented on the costumes – which are vivid and perfectly chosen for the play, as is Richard Harris’s music. Harris, himself an accomplished actor, plays the piano man here and blends top tunes of the day into scene changes and includes one delicious rendition of the dance craze, “Black Bottom” that was sweeping 1925. As Sally tells Jack, “the Charleston is SO 1924!”
The cast is uniformly good, particularly, Christopher Tedrow as the mysterious Jack Beck. He blends a sincere naivete with a layer of mystery that we come to know later in the show is hiding a fact that he is….well, once again, I won’t give it away here – but it is a SCRUMPTIOUS secret that will delight you, when it is revealed. Erin Jo Harris as Sally is also excellent. One thing that often annoys me in plays is when someone chooses to do an accent and fades in and out of it or drops it entirely, halfway through the show. Ms. Harris does not do this. Praises be to her! Her New York accent is consistent and totally believable throughout.
Also wonderful is Steve Brock as Alexander Woolcott, dispensing sardonic barbs without remorse or regret, he was disliked in social circles and Steve captures his bitchy demeanor with measured accuracy.
Nicholas Daly Clark is the quintessential WASP, Robert Benchley whose diatribes on every topic from the state of the world, to critiques of poor reporting made him one of the most prominent columnists of his day.
Rounding out the rosewood table are Craig Win as Franklin Pierce Adams and Chris Gooch as George S. Kaufman.
And, of course, what excursion into the Algonquin would be complete without the irrepressible Mrs. Dorothy Parker. Roz Stanley absolutely nails Parker. Her sarcasm. Her drinking. And the touch of vulnerability under the surface. Often, when actresses play Parker, they create a caricature, which only makes her seem mean and shallow and she was anything but. Ms. Stanley gets the fact that although she had a wicked tongue, Dorothy Parker also was a vulnerable woman, who needed love which she never achieved in life, not through her many husbands, or her many bottles of liquor. It is a thorough and perfectly realized performance.
All of the members of this excellent ensemble wouldn’t be cohesing or binding without the thoughtful direction of director Dig Wayne.
All-in-all an excellent job by everyone! Kudos to one and all!!
What I didn't like
I would like to see this play developed a bit more. I would like to see more music incorporated into the show – after all, it is the jazz age! I wish it were running longer, because I would see it again, if I could!
My overall impression
Wit, panache and class are all alive and well at the Three Clubs in Hollywood, where Steve Vlasak’s “Nights at the Algonquin Round Table” is finishing up a run as part of the Hollywood Fringe. When you step through the doors into the back room, you are stepping back in time to 1925 New York City, at the luxurious Algonquin Hotel, where every day for lunch, the infamous “Vicious Circle” held court.
We are introduced to it all by Sally, a waitress who knows not only everything that goes on in the back room where the rosewood table sits, but also a lot of what goes on in other rooms, throughout the hotel. Her knowledge has made her wise, not bitter and she knows a good thing when she sees one. Today she sees a very good thing, in the person of young “Jack Beck” who arrives with one suitcase and a huge ambition: to meet the movers and shakers at the table and get that “big break” that all successful writers need to break into the business.
Like Jack, the audience can hardly wait for lunchtime and the banter, puns, bitchy comments and witty repartee that ensues as Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, George S. Kaufman, Franklin Pierce Adams, and of course, the extraordinary Mrs. Dorothy Parker converge and take their seats.
There is more to this story than just quick one liners however, and I won’t give it away here – but there is a twist that no one in the audience sees coming and it is a huge crowd-pleaser. I loved every moment of this show!
