Stage Review - Curtain Up! (Jewel Box Theatre)
Stage Review - Curtain Up!
Presented By: Jewel Box Theatre - Poulsbo, WA
Show Run: January 17 - February 02, 2025
Date Reviewed: Saturday, January 18, 2025 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 2 Hours, 20 Minutes (including a 15 minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman
Reading the description for Curtain Up!, the play currently running on stage at the Jewel Box Theatre in Poulsbo, one would think that it’s one of the great stage comedies, that it’s two hours of laugh out loud fun with that as its only memorable quality. Described as “hilarious”, “very funny”, and “a light-hearted romp”, Curtain Up! tells the story of five women and a dilapidated old theatre, left to them in equal shares by the recently deceased owner of the building. And while, yes, if I’m being completely honest, the play, which runs on stage through February 2 in a production directed by Trina Williamson, is all of those things, but to limit the description to that of a comedy isn’t fair, it’s actually so much more than that. Curtain Up! is a deeply emotional and layered comedy that puts five unlikely women together in a situation that forces them to find a way to work together and come up with a solution for a theatre that none of them expected, and really even wanted, to come into possession of.
As the story goes, a recently deceased man has left the theatre to the five women in his life he cared for the most in life, including his ex-wife Pam, their daughter Theresa, his much younger current wife and widow Jackie, Pam’s mother Betty, and his secretary Sharon. Ostensibly, there are a few reasons for the ownership being divided this way, there’s the way to celebrate the memories that the deceased and his daughter shared in the theatre when they were younger, and perhaps the most important, and most thinly veiled intent, is to force his first and second wives to find a way to work together civilly, as it’s clear the two can’t stand the sight of each other. As far as Betty and Sharon go, they’re largely ancillary characters with respect to the overall story arc, and are here predominantly for the purpose of humor, while the emotional load bearing is done within the relationships between Pam and Jackie, as well as between Pam and daughter Theresa. As the group works to clean up the theatre, they determine that a fundraiser is needed, and boy, if they could get someone with some star power, they could make enough money to do everything they want to do with it. And that’s where the farcical nature of the show comes in to play, when the fundraiser is setup and everything starts to go wrong, the women come up with a solution that is only sure to make things worse, in the funniest way possible.
The group of actors that Trina has assembled for Curtain Up! is quite adept at the comic delivery that the play calls for, but it’s really in the emotional scenes where they really stand out, and here they’re led by Sarah Conte-Bacolini, in what is the most versatile role that I’ve seen her in to date. Sarah’s Theresa drives a lot of the overall plot of the show, and Sarah is the standout here. Her Theresa is the one with the strongest connection to the theatre and is the most determined to make something of it, whereas her mother Pam, played by Christine Usher, would rather distance herself from anything to do with the theatre, especially when Elizabeth D’Angelo’s Jackie enters the picture. This trio of actors produce some strong emotional, poignant, and heartfelt moments, there’s a lot of anger between them, but there’s also love, especially between Theresa and Pam, and the hope for forgiveness between Pam and Jackie. In a play that’s generally as humorous as this one is, these actors’ ability to add their moments of seriousness and levity, and make them hit as well as they do, shows how good they are in these roles. To put a finer point on Sarah’s performance is to contrast her two monologues near the end of the show as Theresa, one delivered nervously, a display of Sarah’s acumen with regards to humor, and the other poignant and serious, showing her ability to engage with an audience in a more heartfelt fashion.
They group is very good at the comedic aspects of their roles, especially in Act 2, when things fall apart around the events of their fundraiser, even in the subtle parts. There’s a scene at the beginning of the second act, when the group is lining up a microphone stand that is seems like a simple scene, but it’s so funny, centered on a debate around where the center of the stage is, Jackie and Pam each fighting over an inch.
Beyond Sarah, Christine, and Elizabeth are Kylie Cordero as secretary Sharon, who keeps promising her boyfriend is going to show up and help, but of course we never see him, and Sharon Greany as Theresa’s grandmother and Pam’s mother Betty, also known by the nickname “Nan”. Kylie is so good as Sharon, she’s exuberant, energetic, and overly positive, sort of a punk rocker by dress and extremely helpful. Meanwhile, Betty is just as funny, but Sharon’s delivery as the character is deadpan and matter of fact, too old to be worried about all of this fighting between mother and daughter, wife and ex-wife. As a group, there’s a lot to like here in this production of Curtain Up!
The show isn’t perfect, though, of course few things are. While I absolutely adore Sharon Greany’s costumes, especially the dresses worn by the women for their fundraiser, much of what Kylie’s character wears, and what the women wear in the aerobics class also led by Kylie, aren’t period appropriate for the timing of the show, which is late 1990s, instead screaming 1980s with bright neon colors, leg warmers, and fanny packs. There’s also a scene when the theatre is being tidied up, after one of the early conflicts between Pam and Jackie when Jackie has purchased a high priced paint, contrary to Pam’s budget constraints, and has started to paint the wall with Sharon. After a few months’ time jump, there is no progress on the painting, when realistically it would make sense that there should have been at least some progress. Perhaps something as simple as covering up the painted area during the time jump scene change with something could imply a bit of progress in the fixing up of the theatre. Otherwise, I feel like some of the scenes that lean heavily on dialogue for their humor could have even been made funnier if the pace of delivery was quicker, but at the end of the day, none of these really take away from the overall enjoyment of the production.
I mentioned Sharon Greany’s costumes above, and I really do like what she’s done in this show, and that goes for the rest of the creative team as well. The set is relatively simple, Bill Klorig’s design for Act 1 begins in the backstage area of the theatre with chairs and garbage strewn about, the things that the actors spend the first few scenes cleaning up. The second act is the setup for the fundraising concert, complete with footlights and proscenium. What I like about the simplicity of this design is how it fits within the Jewel Box space. With seats on three sides of the stage, there are no obstructions, everyone can see the entirety of the stage and what is going on there. I’ve experienced previous shows in the space that were segmented, making it difficult to see what was happening on the far end of the stage from where the audience was sitting, if they were on one of the sides of the theatre. Lights and sound are David Ward’s domain in the show and both do nicely to support the program, especially in Act 2 with the fundraiser set. Finally, there is a bit of choreography, in the aerobics scene, and toward the end as part of the fundraiser. The steps were designed by the team of Trina, Elizabeth, and Sarah, and aside from my previous comments about the wardrobe in the dance scene, it is indeed a fun one to watch.
Curtain Up! is the story of five women with distinctly different personalities thrown together in an unlikely situation, one forcing them to work together in order to save a theatre recently willed to them in equal shares. It’s funny and farcical, but it’s also emotional and heartfelt, running the emotional gamut from anger and sadness to love and forgiveness, with the humor and heart perfectly balanced. Directed by Trina Williamson and with a cast led by Sarah Conte-Bacolini in a breakout performance, Curtain Up! is easily Jewel Box’s best show of the season.
The Jewel Box Theatre production of Curtain Up! runs on stage in Poulsbo through February 2. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.jewelboxpoulsbo.org/.
Photo credit: Kathy Berg
