[Capdist-announce] "...one of the best selections yet from Confetti." - Michael Eck, Times Union

[stageboynewyork at aol.com]

The Last Night of Ballyhoo @ Confetti Stage, 12/11/11
December 11, 2011 at 7:14 pm by Michael Eck

By Michael Eck
Special to The Times Union

ALBANY – It’s December, 1939 in Atlanta, Georgia. Crowds are gathering downtown for the world premiere of “Gone With The Wind,” the sweeping Hollywood treatment of Margaret Mitchell’s equally sweeping novel.
Excitement is in the air.
It’s also getting towards Christmas and fancy trees are being dressed up and down the better blocks of Habersham Road. Even young Lala Levy is gussying up the pine until her mother, Boo, barks at her for sticking a star on top.
“Jewish christmas trees don’t have stars!,” she says.
Playwright Alfred Uhry is fascinated by the fine dividing lines between races and religions, between age and youth and between seemingly disparate, yet conjoined cultures.
He’s most recently addressed sexual repression among the Shakers in a collaboration with Martha Clarke, “Angel Reapers,” which played recently at Proctors.
Lala (Phoebe Baker) and Boo (Sheila O’Shea) are members of the Freitag family, a clan of wealthy, yet largely unhappy Southern Jews, and Uhry’s play “The Last Night of Ballyhoo” examines what happens when a New York Jew from “the other side” enters their insular, non-practicing world.
The show is currently on view, in a confident production directed by Linda Shirey, at Confetti Stage.
“The other side,” in this case, refers to Jews from “east of the Elba.” The Freitag’s friends are German Jews; East European Jews are considered almost alien to them.
Yet Joe Farkas (Neilson Jones), recently hired by Adolph Freitag (Barry Streifert) for his Dixie Bedding Company, is not only a Yankee, but a devout Russian Jew.
Uhry’s backdrop is carefully chosen. The film provides a focus and a palpable setting for the play. News of Hitler’s rise, mostly related through Adolph Freitag’s ever-present newspaper, casts a dark, but real shadow. And the Christmas holiday offers a palette for the playwright’s discussion of the many layers of Jewry.
“Nice Hanukkah bush,” Louisiana suitor and perpetual wiseacre Peachy Weil (Stephen Hensel) says of the tree, for example, upon entering the Freitag house.
But the big issues never overwhelm the ongoing family portrait and with every line Uhry develops his characters.
O’Shea is the best of Shirey’s cast in this play and she does a crisp job of portraying a woman trapped in her own life and lashing out in whatever little way she can. Jones is also strong as a man proud of his traditions and confused by the Freitag’s lack of the same.
Confetti founder Jones matches well with his romantic interest, Sunny Freitag (Andrea LaPietra), who offers a nice blend of innocence and gumption.
Baker’s character, Sunny’s cousin, got “the moxie” rather than the brains, but the actress often pushes too hard and it’s occasionally difficult to make out her lines through the accent and the high-speed delivery.
The Ballyhoo of the title, by the way, is the big annual gathering for the Southern German Jews, and the final evening’s dance offers a destination for all of the play’s verbose action.
With minor quibbles, this is one the best selections yet from Confetti.

THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO
Performance reviewed: 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Albany Masonic Hall, 67 Corning Place, Albany
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes; one intermission.
Continues: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: $12-$15
Info: 242-8015; http://www.confettistage.org
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