Review: FOREVER PLAID Rises from the Grave at Saint Vincent Summer Theatre

Here's a fun fact about me: I have never played one of the Four Plaids, but I have been in many, many productions of Forever Plaid. There used to be a drawer in my house full of printed-out certificates and plaid-covered dental floss, tokens of my repeat apearances as the "special audience volunteer" in productions of Forever Plaid across the last twenty years. (It turns out, when you ask an audience "is anyone willing to come up onstage and play piano for us," not a lot of people will be bold enough to volunteer for that.)

I do my part and play hapless, acting like I've never seen the show before, but the cast (especially the ones who know me) can be reasonably sure that I'll play along and be a good guest star despite not actually being an audience plant per se. I bring this all up to underline my point: I have seen Forever Plaid many, many times- sometimes it feels like too many- and I know the show inside and out. Director Greggory Brandt and choreographer Renata Marino have done what esems impossible at Saint Vincent Summer Theatre's latest staging of Plaid: they've found a cast that makes the show feel new again.

Since Forever Plaid is perhaps the most popular small-cast cabaret musical of all time, I doubt I need to sum of the plot. Then again, the plot is so light that it can't hurt: decades after their tragic death in a car accident, a four-man vocal group is returned to the land of the living to complete their unfinished business by performing their show for a live crowd. It's been a while, namely sixty-some years, since they pulled this one together, so there's a bit of a learning curve for the four wholesome youngsters. Can leveleaded group leader Frankie (Alex Podolinski), neurotic Sparky (Kevin O'Leary), goofy Jinx (Anthony Marino) and earnest, choreographically-challenged nerd Smudge (Justin Massetto) pull off a show good enough to transition to the next life?

While the show's creator Stuart Ross has long believed that Plaid is a relatively straightforward underdog story that shouldn't be played for undue comedy or camp, that tendency towards precise earnestness has had the effect of making so many productions of Forever Plaid feel like museum pieces performed by Audio-Animatronics. I admit, it may technically be deviating from the authorial intent, but it was genuinely refreshing to see a production willing to say "You know what? Let's let it be a little silly." It also helps that director Brandt has assembled a cast of very funny singing actors, most of whom are old pros at audience participation and the need to stay on their toes. (At least three of the four Plaids are longtime veterans of ANOTHER cult-favorite-frozen-in-time musical, having done Rocky Horror everywhere from Stage Right to Westmoreland Performing Arts to Pittsburgh CLO's Greer Cabaret Theatre.)

Right away, SVST regulars will be delighted to see Kevin O'Leary (billed earlier in his career as Cav) back on the Saint Vincent stage as Sparky. No one can play an anxious live-wire like O'Leary, which made him a fixture in the company's farces for a decade. O'Leary's baritone is strong and confident with a notable old-school vibrato; he's a natural for Sparky's more lounge-lizard material during his solos. His high vibrational energy as Sparky is balanced by Smudge, played by Justin Massetto as an endearingly shy teddy bear who never got his chance to shine in life. Smudge may fumble his choreography on almost every song (a running gag which follows through the show from start to finish), but when Massetto, an operatic bass in everyday life, lets loose on Smudge's "Sixteen Tons" solo, it's like opening a door and letting in a tornado.

Alex Podolinski, lately a mainstay of Pittsburgh CLO to play the "sexy villain" archetype, doesn't have quite as much inherent comedy in his role as the other three Plaids. As group leader Frankie, he is often tasked with keeping the others in order, but Podolinski finds great deadpan humor in his interactions with the others, particularly a running gag involving Jinx's nosebleeds. Speaking of Jinx, Anthony Marino (a second generation St. Vincent regular) turns in a physical-comedy performance. Flailing his limbs madly to manage props, playing Spanish guitar with wild abandon, dancing a ballet pas de deux or dashing to the footlights in a flash, the diminutive Marino's mix of buffoonery and absolute confidence immediately brings to mind a young Martin Short in his SNL days. And when the four Plaids sing together, the sound they make is no joke: it's pitch-perfect midcentury harmony from Marino's reedy treble to Massetto's booming bass.

I've remarked before that Forever Plaid has been an institution for so long, people now see the show ITSELF as something to be nostalgic for, not just the music it contains. This time, however, I happened to sit a few seats down from two older women, of the generation that watched Ed Sullivan and Lawrence Welk religiously. The two of them had enormous smiles on their faces, and were singing along (quietly, don't worry) with nearly every song in the show, stars in their eyes the whole time. Maybe Plaid isn't as outdated as I once thought it was after all!