In its most recent adventure into theatre, By the Sea Productions in Morro Bay took on a formidable task: producing a new work by a local playwright based on the works of an author known for his unconventional stories.
Dahl’s Darlings is a short (one hour and fifteen minutes including intermission) coupling of two short stories by Roald Dahl adapted for the stage by Samvel Gottlieb, who has carried many a mantle for the theatre company: director, actor, lighting and sound designer, etc.
Gottlieb has adapted “The Way Up to Heaven” and “Lamb to the Slaughter”— which share a common theme of women taking control of their lives—into an overlapping tale of macabre murders that, while presenting itself at first as two mysteries, becomes an overt wink at the audience of “will they really get away with this?” proportions. The show’s subtitle, “Obedience and Other Deadly Virtues,” might perhaps be the play’s more suitable title.
By all rights, the one-weekend, three-performance staged reading January 17-19 should have been billed as a work-in-progress, or perhaps part of a workshopping process meant to elicit feedback for a fully-staged production. Director Madison Wethington and her cast of nine treated the material with affection and enthusiasm, and gave full voice to characters who, in Dahl’s material, are sketches rather than full-blown portraits.
Kudos to By the Sea Productions for supporting new, creative work and artists in local theatre.”
Gottlieb and Wethington, with assistance from crew members Rhonda Crowfoot and Perri Gandy, took care to surround the actors with the basics of a set. Sound design included music appropriate to the 1950s era, which helped to remind audiences of a period when housewives perhaps had fewer options to control their own destinies than women today.
Still, Kate Kravets and Olivia Cusick, playing the wives in question, found a knowing, even modern, sensibility in their roles, often even expressing a contained delight as they shared their secrets with the audience.
Jim Allen, Larry Bolef, Alyza Boriphanvichitr, Jonah Duhe, Randall Lyon, and Topher Lyons kept their performances mostly in check, letting the material speak for itself. Gottlieb has added expository dialogue as needed while wisely retaining some of Dahl’s best: when one of the police officers looking for evidence of a crime declares it’s “probably right under our very noses” he couldn’t be more right.
The main drawback of the play is its brevity. Perhaps continuing to workshop its pieces, adding depth to the character development, or entwining another of Dahl’s short stories might flesh out a longer, fuller-realized work.
Kudos to By the Sea Productions for supporting new, creative work and artists in local theatre.