Al H. Mohrmann (foreground) and Michael Irvin star in Rich Orloff's Big Boys at the Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison.

'Big Boys'

Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey offers a blisteringly funny exploration of the world of big business.
By: Stuart Duncan , TimeOFF

   Rich Orloff is clearly not a playwright to be saddled with reality. His new play Big Boys not only explores the world of big business, it takes a confident, firm grip on the absurdities therein. On the surface, it is a two-hour pas de deux between an egotistical, unethical and amoral boss and his mild-mannered, ethical and highly moral assistant. But not far below the surface, it is as blisteringly funny a screwball comedy as you will find.
   It is as if someone had taken David Mamet's real estate salesmen and marched them into a Laugh-In rehearsal, then strained the remainders through a Lenny Bruce monologue. The work, a co-production of the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, is now at the latter's site in Madison through Jan. 26.
   The premise is simple: Norm (Michael Irvin) is applying for a job and meets with the boss, Victor (Al H. Mohrmann). Victor bullies him, humiliates him and then hires him. We then spend the next two perverse hours watching as Norm undergoes Victor's word and mind games, with an occasional fact tossed in mainly to confuse. "What does this company make?" Norm asks innocently. "I have no idea; I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew. Ask production," Victors blusters.
   Gradually Norm takes on the protective coloration he needs to be a successful, insensitive boor of an important executive. The laughs come faster and harder as the absurdities grow. The only question remaining is whether or not Norm will kill Victor for his desk chair and, if so, how?
   The actors have a fine time in their roles, clearly relishing each section of chicanery. Even Richard Currie's lighting design suggests the familiar Enron logo. John Pietrowski's direction is as wild and untrammeled as the script. Enjoy.

The boss has more fun in 'Big Boys'

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

At Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, big business meets the Marx Brothers' "Monkey Business" in Rich Orloff's "Big Boys."

The result is the silliest hit of the season. For those who assumed that theater of the absurd died in the '60s, here it is, alive and thriving in Madison.

Tyrannical boss Victor victimizes every employee he meets. But Norm needs a job, so he'll say whatever he must during the interview to get hired. Even when Victor announces that he'll call him Gustave, Norm can only meekly acquiesce to this outrageous demand.

Norm knows he has the experience and skills for the job, but that's not what interests Victor. This titan of industry believes that he can say or do anything he wants with an employee. He even pries into Norm's sex life, and soon Norm is stammering "I-I-I-I-I" more than Ricky Ricardo.

And so it goes, with Victor, leaning back in his leather chair, always feeling free to interrupt Norm and playing with him like a fly on a microscope slide. It's exaggerated comedy, but frequently funny, such as Victor's announcement that he has made himself Employee of the Month for life, or his phone calls to Santa Claus -- and God.

Orloff seemed to have Groucho in mind when he wrote Victor. Remember how Groucho would set up Margaret Dumont by feeding her an innocuous remark, and no matter how she answered, he'd suddenly and furiously imply that she'd just insulted him? Victor does the same with the never-can-win Norm. And like Harpo unleashing a barrage of silverware from his clothing, Norm pulls job reference after job reference from his jacket pocket.

How absurd does it get? When Victor says he has taped his conversations with Norm, he reveals a roll of Scotch tape on which he has written their remarks. Victor even insists on a penis-measuring contest.

Breathes there an employee with soul so dead that he hasn't wanted to be the boss himself? What if, Norm wonders, he adopted all of Victor's ruthless methods? Could this nice guy finish first? Must a boss always have the last word and last laugh?

Those intriguing questions give this play an added layer. Orloff dares to raise some serious issues-- whether or not Victor is ultimately the victim, or if Norm, doomed to be a paper tiger, could change his stripes. Orloff makes a strong statement about employee-boss dynamics by play's end.

Michael Irvin is perfectly cast as Norm, the prematurely bald, slightly overweight bundle of nerves who licks his lips to the quick. He sits rigidly with his hands clasped on his lap, eyes rarely looking up from his shoes, chin almost resting on his geeky bow-tie. His head movements suggest a turtle retreating into his shell, so much so that Irvin seems to be retracting his head into his ribcage. His voice goes falsetto-high when Victor says something inane, as he searches for the right word that won't offend the man who is, after all, the boss.

Al H. Mohrmann plays Victor in all his it's-good-to-be-the-king glory. He has a distinguished, presidential look and the demeanor of one who holds court with a home-court advantage. Director John Pietrowski has forged them into a good team.

During "Big Boys," Victor chuckles and says, "I have a firm grip on absurdity." So does Orloff, as this entertaining evening proves.

Al Mohrmann, left, and Michael Irvin play the only two characters in 'Big Boys.'

By Debra Scacciaferro, Daily Record

"BIG BOYS"

Corporate greed has always been a rich mother lode of inspiration for comedy playwrights. Rich Orloff's new comedy, "Big Boys," which opened at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison last week, is one of the newest products of that inspiration.

The premise of pitting a nice-guy employee against a ruthless - and in this case, totally insane - boss isn't new. But it sure is topical. In the hands of actors Al H. Mohrman and Michael Irvin, who deftly dish out the playwright's dazzling comic arsenal of corporate patois under the taut direction of John Pietrowski, it sure is funnier than reading about the latest corporate scandal on the business pages.

To big boss Victor, "no" is a foreign word. "Illegal, unethical and immoral" are qualities to aspire to in this mad, mad world of 21st-century corporate mayhem.

He's made a mess of five marriages. The only one of his kids he hasn't committed to a mental institution won't tell him where he lives. He screams to his secretary sitting outside his door because he likes to. And he's more interested in getting all the little steel balls into the clown's eyes in his pocket puzzle than he is in his company's business.

"If I have to choose between truth and what I know," he tells Norm, "I'll always go with what I know. It's more dependable."

To nice-guy assistant Norm, "decency" is what sets him apart, and although he is often confounded by his new company's operating strategy, he still believes it will work out right in the end. He's got a new love life. He's moving up rapidly. The CEO is his personal mentor. And he believes he has a chance to set a new tone in the company.

Of course, Norm's badly mistaken. "Surely, sir, you didn't hire me to be a yes man," he tells Victor.

"Sure, I did," Victor says. "When I want integrity, I hire a PR firm."

By the time he realizes that Victor is a lunatic, it's too late. His life begins to fall apart as Victor takes an unhealthy interest in screwing up Norm's personal affairs.

Who emerges alive out of this claustrophobic situation seems at first a foregone conclusion. The irrepressible Victor is like a gleeful 5-year-old who never runs out of a new ploy. He trumps Norman's every ethical objection to corporate misdeeds with a madman's zeal and the Devil's logic. He has an unerring instinct for finding the vulnerabilities of his employees and adversaries. Like some schoolyard bully, Victor enjoys playing the role of corporate tyrant, running circles around poor, meek Norm until he begs for mercy.

By the end of the first act, this wretched and bewildered man is also begging Victor to teach him how to be everything he despises. By the time we meet Norm again in the second act, he seems every inch the spitting image of his boss - a bully in a fancy tie and pinstriped suit.

"I think I'm finally in touch with my inner 'Victor,'" he gloats.

This transformation of Norm is as harrowing as it is funny. Orloff may take his characters way over the top, but in doing so, he's revealed the cracks in the seams of America's current lust for material wealth and power. We all secretly want to be one of the big boys.

But Orloff, and director Pietrowski, (who told me he hates plays that leave you believing that human beings have no choices and no power) are not content to leave it there. They spend the rest of the second half of this play slyly turning the entire situation on its head.

In fact, despite first appearances, "Big Boys" has a lot in common with Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," believing that in the end, goodness always triumphs over evil. While the very last moments of "Big Boys" fall disappointingly short of a totally satisfying Capra ending, they come darned close. So if you're in the mood to see the corporate tables turned, get a ticket to "Big Boys." It's only running through Jan. 26.

BIG BOYS

Variety.com Review
By ROBERT L. DANIELS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the wake of a year marked by corporate collapse and white-collar scandals, Rick Orloff's "Big Boys" is well-timed. The scathing two-character comedy explores the unethical behavior of a greedy and corrupt CEO who badgers, bullies and harasses his nerdy new recruit. Lurking beneath the play's irreverent fun is an unnerving truth that is more than a bit scary.

The egomaniacal titan, Victor (Al H. Mohrmann), wears a suit to bed because he likes to make business decisions in his sleep. He offers his doctor a bribe to change the diagnosis of an impending heart attack, never uses his intercom because he prefers to shout and makes of his employees "spineless toads and servile lackeys." Mohrmann acts the tyrannical monster with bullish authority, accented by a fiercely penetrating gleam in his eye.

Norm (Michael Irvin) is a decent, bow-tied weasel who is quickly seduced by Victor's unscrupulous devices and immoral business tactics. Irvin plays him with quicksilver comic timing. Norm's disarming revolt and ultimate triumph over corruption gives the play its plot.

Orloff has deftly captured the surly vernacular and ruthless scheming of corporate bigwigs and their white-collar subordinates. His dialogue has a distinctive rhythm and boasts the kind of rapid-fire repartee with which Matthau and Lemmon would have had a field day.

John Pietrowski's clean and direct staging finds the actors circling each other like hunter and prey. The play is crisply paced and might fly better without an intermission.

Tech credits are slick and functional. A sharp lighting design illuminates the sterile simplicity of an icy office set. The play is a co-production of New Jersey Repertory in Long Branch, where it made its formal bow last December, and it most certainly has legs.

Drama Review: `Big Boys'

This article by Jack Florek was prepared for the January 8, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.

You're just jealous because I have a firm grip on absurdity," quips Victor, the corporate head honcho in Rich Orloff's new comedy, "Big Boys." This is one of the few lines in the play that is not an exaggeration. Opening this week at Playwrights Theater of New Jersey in Madison, "Big Boys" is a whacked-out, well-crafted, two-person play depicting the sort of unbridled egotism pervading big corporations that audiences have come to expect in this post-Enron scandal era.

This world premiere is a Playwrights co-production with the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. After completing its month-long run in Long Branch the production has moved to PTNJ, 33 Green Village Road, where it opens Friday, January 10, and runs to Sunday, January 26.

Reading somewhat like a skewed 21st century version of "A Star is Born," "Big Boys" tells the story of Norm Waterbury (Michael Irvin), a twerp-ish corporate wannabe, who is applying for an executive job at a mega-corporation run by Victor Burlington (Al Mohrmann). But even before he is hired, Norm is already a fish out of water. Intent on maintaining his moral integrity and "helping mankind," Norm still hopes to make a big splash in the big ugly corporate world.

Norm gets the job and Victor, the quintessential emotionally abusive boss who enjoys firing his employees on a whim, puts his new charge through the ringer.

"Did you do any fornicating this weekend?" asks Victor. "Do you fantasize seeing me naked?" When Norm balks at the notion of unethical business practices and tries to quit, Victor locks the door from the inside. After Victor harangues him for losing his girlfriend and being disowned by his parents, Norm is reduced to tears. Now at his nadir, Norm allows Victor to build him up in his own image; he becomes an "asshole in training."

Alas Norm proves to be equal to the task, but on his own terms, and the play ends all saccharin sweet with a death and a moral twist. But "Big Boys" is more than its plot. Its charm lies in its heightened lunacy and the often witty dialogue between its two archetypical schnooks.

Michael Irvin and Al H. Mohrmann are both fine comic actors with excellent timing (The "I-like-you," "I-lick-you" exchange is particularly funny). To say that their performances are cartoonish in no way belittles their craftsmanship. Both actors understand that the play's emotions bear only a passing resemblance to real feelings and wisely whisk right on past.

Reminiscent of a youthful Wallace Shawn, Irvin pouts and waddles his way through the first half of the play, alternating between hopefulness, obstinacy, and utter confusion. Mohrmann as Victor is crass and thoroughly unlikable as he gleefully carves his subordinate up into emotional ribbons.

But while neither character, as written, is the sort of person one would like to sit next to on a crowded airplane, Irvin's and Mohrmann's performances are so mutually fine-tuned that the play remains a pleasure. Mohrmann manages to keep the audience on his side, in an almost Groucho Marx-like way, with his gleeful and impudent manner. ("Yeah, I sleep in a suit," he says. "I like to make business decisions in my sleep.") Irvin, whose character is the redoubtable victim, comes through in the end like a corporate Rocky Balboa.

John Pietrowski's direction is also a plus. With only two actors and the questionable subject matter it would be easy for things to crash and burn. But Pietrowski keeps the action natural in the midst of the craziness, tweaking the dialogue just enough that the audience never takes the story too seriously. The actors seem to be enjoying themselves throughout the show (a mark of a good director); the jokes are nicely paced -- quick, but not rushed; and the stage action is comfortably choreographed and evenly executed. The audience is never left in the lurch.

Yoshinori Tanokura's set design is austere but elegantly functional and contributes to the fun. (The half-dead potted tree set downstage of Victor's desk is a nice touch.) Patricia E. Doherty's costume designs are equally successful, conveying subtle shifts in character development and the passage of time with a quick change in tie color.

"Big Boys" is unpretentious, light-hearted, and very audience-friendly. I initially expected it to be a humorous variation of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," but it is much funnier than that. The humiliations that Norm suffers in Rich Orloff's script are too broad to invite the audience into extensive bouts of empathy. There are frequent, funny, references to sexuality that some may find a tad offensive.

So even if you haven't been following the latest bit of corporate corruption, "Big Boys" is an enjoyable, light-hearted experience. John H. Patterson, business tycoon and founder of the National Cash Register Corporation, once said, "To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them." The same could be said for live theater, and "Big Boys" fills that bill.

-- Jack Florek

Lots of exits and entrances on the theater scene

Sunday, December 29, 2002

BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

Heraclitus' 2,500-year-old statement that "The only constant is change" is a good one to describe the New Jersey professional theater scene in 2002.

After 18 years as artistic director of the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, Robert Johanson found his contract was not renewed by the board. He left in July -- five months before his longtime executive producer, Angelo Del Rossi, announced his impending retirement at the theater where he's worked since 1964.

Michael Stotts, the managing director of the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in Madison before defecting to the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, leaves this week to become the managing director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven.

Meanwhile at the Shakespeare Festival, Frank Mack took Stotts' position, that had been vacant for nearly a year. The Community Theatre in Morristown hired Allison Perrine-Larena as executive director.

Mary Oleniczak, who headed the John Harms Center for the Arts in Englewood, was fired after only 15 months on the job, because the theater felt it needed to cut expenses. George Street laid off three staff members in an effort to trim 10 percent off its 2003-04 budget. Most significantly, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts cut most of its individual grants by 3 percent.

But there was one good burst of financial news: The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in Madison received $1 million from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

Luna Stage, after a year-long delay, opened its handsome two-theater complex on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair. Tri-State Actors Theatre, previously located in Branchville, bought a new theater in Sussex. The Women's Theater Company, an itinerant troupe, changed its venue from Playwrights Theatre in Madison to the Bickford Theatre in Morris Township. The McCarter Theatre in Princeton continued construction on its new Roger S. Berlind Theatre, a 350-seat space that will open in September.

McCarter had the most artistic success, for its productions of "Yellowman" and "Crowns" went on to successful off-Broadway runs. (The Paper Mill's production of "I'm Not Rappaport" flopped on Broadway.) McCarter's upcoming production of Stephen Deitz' "Fiction" was one of three winners of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, which awarded $25,000 to the author and to the Princeton playhouse's production, which opens in March.

One theater re-opened under staggering odds. Crossroads Theatre of New Brunswick, which had been shuttered for two seasons, saw its 10-year lease on its building at 7 Livingston Ave. expire, and found that the New Brunswick Cultural Center decided to retake control of the theater. It would allow Crossroads to rent, however.

Leslie Edwards, the theater's executive director, was dismissed in May. Rhinold Ponder, the New Brunswick attorney who had been president of the board for two years, resigned, and Marguerite Mitchell-Ivey, a longtime AT&T executive, took his place. Tony Award-winning choreographer George Faison, who had previously been named acting artistic director, opened the theater in October with three low-budget productions. What will happen in 2003 is less certain.

The New Jersey Theatre Alliance augmented its Family Week with Spanish-language performances. The Alliance's January symposium, "A Theatre Community Responds to 9/11" held at Crossroads in January, was broadcast on National Public Radio in September.

Saddest of all was the sudden and unexpected death in September of Stewart Fisher, associate artistic director of New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. He died of heart failure at age 37.

TWO RIVER TIMES
Scene on Stage
By Philip Dorian
New Jersey Rep Company Exposes Corporate Corruption!
Laugh it off with "Big Boys"

Most people believe that life is a fairly solemn affair, an essentially earnest process with lighthearted moments along the way to leaven the tedium. But some believe, as do I, that life is a Marx Brothers movie, with occasional serious moments to move the plot along. Some such serious occurrences - national tragedy, personal loss - defy satire or parody, but most are fair game for the skilled wordsmith. Think about Dick Cheney's secret bunker or Hack Welch's divorce or the outrage over Eminen's rap and an editorial cartoon pops into your head.

There's nothing funny about the 1990's accounting felonies that led to the dot com crash, the Enron debacle or the collapse of the aggregated American 401k No? Tell that to Jay Leno and David Letterman. Tell it to Steve Breen. Tell it to Rich Orloff, whose play "Big Boys" is a ripping riff on corporate amorality and abuse of power. The two-character, two-act, not quite two-hour play is a veritable cartoon, and a damn clever one it is.

Norm Waterbury (Michael Irvin) shows up in the office of Victor Burlington (Al H. Mohrmann) seeking employment. Norm is a mouse; Victor a lion. Norm is pure pocket-protector; Victor is strictly go-for-the-throat, Norm is a straight arrow; Victor's a congenital crook. It's a match made in playwright heaven - they're a boardroom odd couple.

The first scene, The Interview, is a series of non-sequesters that somehow manage to establish Victor's goal: to break down Norm's (whom he calls derivatives of Gustav, an inanity that's somehow funny) uprightness and replace it with the venality necessary for corporate success. "You didn't hire me to be a yes-man, did you?" asks Gu (er, Norm) after a few months. The response, "Yes," says it all. Victor's lessons include Passing the Buck 101; Lying But Believing It; and Using a Fair Deal As a Decoy. (Readers who work in corporate environments are smiling now, right? Or maybe not.) Norm's 'conversion' is achieved; he's an empty shell by the first act curtain, ready to be reshaped in Victor's Machiavellian image. The second act of Orloff's play struggles to maintain the comic level; it's unduly repetitious, and the ending is unnecessarily attenuated. There is, however, one hilarious scene culminating in a sight gag that would be dismissed as absurd if it wasn't so outrageously funny.

The play's scenes, separated by blessedly brief blackouts, are set weeks apart. The actors accomplish quick costumes changes between scenes, but in a "this is so simple it just might work" category, the changes are limited to their neckwear. Well, costumer Patricia E. Doherty, it does work. So does the innovative lighting (Richard Currie) that changes patterns and shadows for each episode.

Irvin and Mohrmann are perfectly cast; they're as different in appearance as their characters are in temperament. The sturdy, imposing Mohrmann stands, literally, in direct opposition to the slight, balding Irvin, who cringes in the face of affronts, accentuating the contrast. Under the skilled direction of John Pietrowski, the two play off each other with faultlessly timed double takes and pregnant pauses that enhance punch lines. An effective comedy team, Messrs. Irvin and Mohrmann are truly on the same page, and Orloff's pages reap the benefit. Okay, so Mohrmann could start off somewhere south of bombast, giving him somewhere to go as Victor's corruption comes to a boil. (When he does tone it down, variety and nuance enhance this performance.) And in the play's final scene, Irvin could 86 the actorly self-indulgence and just get one with it. But where better than New Jersey Repertory Company to make adjustments.

This is a co-production, NJ Rep's first, with Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. After its Long Branch run, "Big Boys" plays Madison, meaning a wider audience for a deserving play, extended employment for New Jersey theatre professionals and increased exposure for Long Branch's lower Broadway renaissance. It's a win-win-win situation.

THE LINK
Theater Review
"BIG BOYS" IS SAVVY COMEDY
By Milt Bernstein

The production of New Jersey Repertory Company which opened last weekend, "Big Boys," represents a first-time collaboration with a similar enterprise, the Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. Under the arrangement made, the play will be offered here in Long Branch for four weeks, then followed by three weeks in Madison - thus widening the audience for new plays and playwrights, the goal of both companies.

The two-character play by Rich Orloff offered here should have an excellent chance at success, to judge from the audience reaction at the weekend's performances. Though billed as a comedy, and with many hilarious interchanges and plays on words of the two male characters, behind the biting words can be found some telling insights into the methods and the motivation of some business entrepreneurs.

The play follow the business adventure, and misadventures, of Norm, a mild-mannered and basically decent young man who wins the job following an uproarious interview with Victor, the explosive and completely unpredictable head of the firm. In one rib-tickling and mind-tingling episode after another, separated by blackouts lasting a few seconds, we follow the seemingly apparent conversion and corruption of Norm to the cynical and highly unscrupulous ways of his employer.

One of these scenes, in which Victor, out of the blue, starts mispronouncing ordinary words we are all familiar with, is a classic, a small gem, worth visiting the play for itself alone.

The performances by the two principals, Al H. Mohrmann and Michael Irvin, are outstanding. The very able direction is by John Pietrowski, artistic director of the Madison company; and the striking set of a contemporary office is by Yoshinori Tanokura.

All supporters of good legitimate theater on Broadway in Long Branch, as opposed to the long trip to Broadway in the Big Apples, should try not to miss this production.

THE COASTER
What's Up
NJ Repertory
"BIG BOYS" SEND UP THE CORPORATE IMAGE
by Robert F. Carroll

Corporate life--and its inanities--gets a going over in "Big Boys," the latest original play enjoying a world premier at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.

The big boys of this two-character comedy by Rich Orloff are Victor (Al Mohrmann) and Norm (Michael Irvin). Victor is interviewing Norm for what appears to be a top job in Victor's company. Victor is the epitome of the corporate biggie, a man who speaks in mindless corporate-ese that baffles Norm.

Mohrmann is hilarious, every inch the flamboyant, self-assured executive, especially when he's speaking nonsense, which is all the time. His only real inters is getting the little steel balls into the clown's eyes in his ever-handy pocket toy.

Toward the end of Act One Victor heightens the silliness by mispronouncing words, which further mystifies Norm, who's ready to ditch the whole idea of getting a job.

"You're nice", an outraged Victor yells at Norm in an outburst of camaraderie.

In Act Two there's a change in Norm, who whimpers, "Teach me all you know" to Victor. He's eventually hired to put the corporation's "Plan X" into play, a plan, of course, that's totally unworkable. And, of course, it works splendidly.

"Big Boys" is a raw--and witty--send-up of corporate people and policies. Playwright Orloff is fortunate in having a couple of Equity pros like Mohrmann and Irvin to wring the hilarity out of the gibberish, which Orloff describes as Abbott and Costello meets David Mamet.

The play, being co-produced by Playwrights Theatre at 33 Green Village Road, Madison, will open there Jan. 10. Playwrights Theatre artistic director John Pietrowski directs.

Big Boys

Richard Orloff's Big Boys is a funny look at the ridiculous, cruel, and heartless corporate machine. An excellent cast and set make this production a good choice for theatre goers.

by Eric Grissom

Being an asshole is a philosophy, or so Richard Orloff's absurdist comedy "Big Boys" will have you believe. The play which is currently in its run at the New Jersey Repertory Company's Lumia Theatre depicts the bizarre and seemingly ridiculous nature of coporate America, or rather, corporate white male America. The play uses a minimal cast and set superbly in demonstrating the corruption of ethics in the modern workplace.

The cast is made up of two characters. Al H. Mohrmann, who portrays the older executive "Victor", does a wonderful job of protraying the unjustly cruel and malicious CEO. His recently hired underling, an average nice fellow named "Norm" (Michael Irvin) is destined to be crushed under the treads of coporate doublespeak and absurd policies. Norm however slowly trades in his eithics for wealth and high class prostitutes. Michael Irvin does a fantastic job showing the evolution, or rather devolution of his nice normal "Norm" into the victorious "Victor".

Orloff does not limit himself solely to using language tricks with his character names- language is a very intricate part of this piece. Victor plays with language throughout- calling Norm every name but his own, changing the stress on letters with abandon and creating new words- all things become distorted. The truth in Orloff's world is always skewed for the benefit of the company, be it corporate mergers, business plans, or the very language they speak. There is no real truth here, only deviation of truth.

The set itself is wonderfully minimal. The only major consistent elements are a desk, chairs, and a plant. The walls are painted in a sky blue which further illustrates the lack of structure and gives the office set the appearence that it's floating somewhere off in the distance. The feeling creates a formlessness and lack of foundation for this particular company that goes perfectly well with the content of the piece. The Lighting Designer, Richard Currie has done an excellent job in adding depth to the nearly bare stage. Its truly a fantastic use of light and shadow.

Comparisons to the playwright David Mamet (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross) can be heard in the dialog right away. "Big Boys" has that same "bullet" style dialog. The staccato banter between his characters. "Big Boys" has that rythym at times, but where Mamet often features heartless characters existing in a hyper reality, Orloff's men exist within a ridiculously absurd one. Victor speaks on the phone with everyone from Santa Claus to God.

Orloff's piece works very well in that it can comment on the moral corruption of the business world, without taking itself too seriously. It is a very funny play indeed, and another testimant to the quality theatre the New Jersey Rep has to offer.

A FIRM GRIP ON THE ABSURD

Asbury Park Press - Review by Tom Chesek

If you haven't made it over to New Jersey Repertory Company's Lumia Theatre in Long Branch for some time, you're in for some delightful surprises.

An exhibit of some extraordinary paintings by Gary Adamson graces the gallery room. The completion of the municipal repaving project has resulted in a vastly improved parking lot and the playhouse has a new access ramp at its entrance.

A newly refurbished, wheel-chair-friendly restroom is now open for business - and oh, yeah, there's a truly funny show going on right now.

That the entertainment gets subordinate billing to the toilet is no reflection upon its quality. It's just that a couple of hours spent in the giddily absurd world of "Big Boys" can wreak havoc with one's gyroscope of logic and priorities; even with the way a body processes sensory stimuli.

All of which serves to put us on the same page as Victor, the cheerfully oblivious, hopelessly self-absorbed president of your standard-issue evil corporation, whose office serves as the sole setting for Rich Orloff's two-character burlesque on business protocol and ethics.

Personified by NJ Rep mainstay Al H. Mohrmann and graced with a firm grip on the absurd as well as the madness of King George, the CEO is a paranoid player of head games who threatens Mom and Santa Clause over the phone (although God hangs up on him), carries on an uncomfortably fetishistic relationship with his potted plant and obsesses over everything from relative penis sizes to getting the little ball in the clowns' eye - all while failing to exhibit the slightest knowledge or interest in just what exactly his company does.

Into this den of illogic comes Norm (Michael Irvin), a bow-tied, eggheaded milquetoast whose upward freefall through the corporate ranks carries him from an interview in which his credentials are instantaneously deposited in the wastebasket - and leaves him sitting in the captain's seat by play's end.

Along the way, this weepily insecure character races from the nerve-jangled nebbishism of Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom to the watch-what-you-say wonkitude of Ari Fleischer, spun into the soft shoulder of self-doubt at every turn by the boss's 180 degree about-faces and literally homicidal harangues.

Playwright Orloff has pegged the show's tone as David Mamet meets Abbott and Costello, and he's right on the money here. The foul-mouthed, festering petri dish of the archetypal Mamet work-place ("Glengarry", "Speed the
Plow") is crossbred with the mastery of Bud and Lou at the pinnacle of their art - a place wherein language serves to exasperate rather than illuminate, and where questions of semantics can only reasonably be resolved in a slapstick strangulation or round-the-desk chase.

A co-production of NJ Rep and Madison-based Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey that replaced the comedy "Spain" on the schedule when that show's director died ("Spain" will be mounted as a script-in-hand reading on Dec. 2), "Big Boys" is directed by PTNJ's John Pietrowski as a series of hit-and-run blackouts, with a flair for physical high jinks and prop-driven laughs that pleasantly surprises in such a confined setting.

"Big Boys" continues through Dec. 22. It moves to the PTNJ theater in Madison for an early 2003 engagement, by which time its two masterful comic leads should have this down pat as "Who's on First."

Greed is good fun: NJ Rep premieres a comedy of corporate ill manners

Published in the Asbury Park Press 11/22/02

The whole haughty concept of corporate ethics might seem like the oxymoronic final frontier these days -- not to mention something less than a surefire laugh-getter for a general public still punchy from the latest round of 401 KO's.

BIG BOYS A play by Rich Orloff New Jersey Repertory Company Lumia Theatre 179 Broadway, Long Branch Through Dec. 22 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays $20-$30 (732) 229-3166

For some of us, though, the current climate of gold-parachute grift is the stuff of the most deliciously vitriolic vaudeville.

For New York-based playwright Rich Orloff, it was a terminally tedious bus ride from Manhattan to Massachusetts that inspired him to take notepad to kneecap and compose "Big Boys," a new comedy previewing this week in its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company's Lumia Theatre in Long Branch.

Described by the author as an "over-the-top fable that comically explores ethics, and the luscious allure of ignoring them," Orloff's two-character boardroom burlesque takes a jauntily jaundiced look at what passes for professional protocol within a big, bloated and black-hearted business entity.

Although the play can trace its origins back to the boom times of the late 1990s, those looking for parallels "ripped screaming from today's headlines" will scarcely be discouraged here in a NJ Rep season that's been rife with such timely themes as sexually predatory clergy, hostage situations and hate-crime violence.

The play's point is driven home at the business end of a rubber chicken.

Composing his duet in a style which he triangulates as "David Mamet meets Abbott and Costello" -- suggesting a cross between the potty-mouthed powerplays of "Glengarry Glen Ross" and the amped-up arpeggios of "Who's On First" -- Orloff submits he "spent a lot of time on the wordplay," adding that "both of the characters use words to advance their goals."

Opening tonight following a pair of preview performances yesterday and running through Dec. 22, "Big Boys" (an award winner and finalist in a number of theater festivals and writing competitions) is the first co-production of New Jersey Repertory with Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, at whose Madison playhouse the show continues with an engagement previewing on Jan. 9 and running through Jan. 26. It replaces the previously announced "Spain" on the Lumia schedule; that show having been canceled following the sudden death at age 37 of its director, NJ Rep veteran Stewart Fisher.

In recalling the contributions of Fisher (whose six productions at the Lumia included the company's inaugural show "Ends"), NJ Rep co-founder Gabor Barabas observed that the Seattle native "continually put his stamp on all of the works he directed, while making sure that the playwright's vision is realized on the stage."

Acknowledging that the company "couldn't do justice" to Fisher's vision of "Spain" without him -- while maintaining that they owed it to their subscribers not to remain dark through the end of the year -- Dr. Barabas contacted Playrights Theatre (then poised to stage "Big Boys" in February) with the suggestion that the two like-minded troupes form a partnership; auditioning actors together and dividing key jobs between talents associated with both of the organizations.

"This is a total collaboration -- our actors, their director and a mix of designers from both theaters, said NJ Rep artistic director SuzAnne Barabas. "(Playwrights Theatre) are definitely on the same page as us -- dedicated to new works, and not afraid to take chances." The cast features a now-familiar face at the Lumia -- Al Mohrmann, who co-starred this year as a suicidal senior citizen in the poignant "Till Morning Comes" and as an alcoholic layabout in the black comedy "Maggie Rose." This time he's the cynical executive, mentoring a rookie hire (Michael Irvin, seen in several script-in-hand reading presentations at the Lumia) under the direction of Playwrights Theatre artistic director John Pietrowski; all three will continue with the show when it moves to the Madison stage early next year. "The scope of the play is wider than just a jab at corporate ethics," Pietrowski observes. "It's about how the father-son dynamic manifests itself all through our society, from the boss taking the new employee under his wing to the ultimate 'split' between the two."

Explaining that the play's point is driven home at the business end of a rubber chicken, Orloff said, "It'll be nice if people leave the play thinking about its meaning, but my main hope is that they'll leave exhausted from laughing."

"I think a good laugh is almost as pleasurable as a good orgasm," he continues. "And, you don't have to wait as long until you can laugh again."

As SuzAnne Barabas sums up, "The play is just the thing we need in this post-Enron climate. "It's a corporate comedy about the big guys, the new guys, the other guys and everyone in-between."

Featuring set and costume designs respectively by NJ Rep veterans Yoshinori Tanokura and Patricia Doherty, and with lighting and sound supervised by Playwrights Theatre resident designers Richard Currie and Jeff Knapp, "Big Boys" kickstarts what both companies hope will be a frequent and fruitful collaborative relationship in the long run. For reservations and other information, call NJ Rep at (732) 229-3166 or Playwrights Theatre at (973) 514-1787.

New play written with a nod to Joe Papp

Friday, November 22, 2002

BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

Many playwrights were strongly influenced by New York Shakespeare Festival impresario Joseph Papp, and Rich Orloff is among them, even though he has only read about the man.

Orloff's play, "Big Boys," opening on Saturday at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, wouldn't have happened if Orloff had not read a biography of Papp on a 1996 bus trip to a yoga center in western Massachusetts. Orloff says he was feeling angry and hoping that reading "Joe Papp: An American Life," Helen Epstein's 1994 biography, might improve his mood.

"Reading about someone who was both a great man and jerk, I started planning a character who would be just as grandiose, fierce, passionate and egotistical, as well as lovable and fascinating," Orloff says. "Had I not been reading this book -- and angry -- and on a bus where I couldn't do anything else but read, I wouldn't have come up with the idea for 'Big Boys.'"

The story involves Victor, a corporate big shot, who abuses his assistant, Norm. "Victor has a passion for life, while nice, eager-to-please Norm is miserable with his life," Orloff says. "It deals with ethics and the values we have in the corporate world. Where do you draw the line with some of the deals that people are making today?"

Orloff says he relates more to Norm -- "not just because I've almost always been an assistant, but because I like to think I'm the nice guy, too."

Like most playwrights, he has endured a number of day jobs. "I've added figures, proof-read, worked in a secretarial pool, delivered documents, dug up sugar beets, and even unloaded leisure suits from Romania," he says.

He has had many bosses, one of whom he invited to a reading of "Big Boys."

"Afterwards, he said to me, 'You know, when I started out, I worked for a guy like that,'" Orloff says. "I didn't think he would recognize himself, but for him to so not recognize himself was surprising."

After that reading, Orloff started sending "Big Boys" around. He entered the tri-state play writing contest that Theatrefest in Montclair holds each winter.

"The script didn't win, but John Pietrowski (artistic director) at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey was a judge who liked it, and said he'd do it," Orloff says. "Was he surprised when I told him that a reader at his theater had already rejected it."

Last month, Stewart Fisher, a director at New Jersey Rep, died in the midst of preparing a production that would have opened last weekend. Artistic director SuzAnne Barabas suddenly needed something to offer her subscribers, heard about "Big Boys," read it, and offered to co-produce with Playwrights Theatre.

So after "Big Boys" concludes its Long Branch run on Dec. 22, it will resume performances on Jan. 10 at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison for an additional two weeks.

"I'm a big fan of Kaufman and Hart," Orloff says, referring to the successful play writing team. "I've heard many stories about what they endured out of town, and wished that one day I could take a play on the road. Now I can.

"Though," he says, "it would have been nice to have Joe Papp there, too."

Theater groups applaud behind-the-scenes players

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

For the last 13 years, every New Jersey professional playhouse participated in the annual "Applause Awards" bestowed by the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, the consortium of professional theaters.

"But," says John McEwen, the alliance's executive director, "we now have 22 theaters. If each gave an award, the ceremony would last five hours."

McEwen decided that half the theaters would present this year, and the other half next year. At a 2 1/2-hour ceremony held at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick Monday night, a select 11 dispensed framed certificates.

Applause Awards aren't given to a best actor or best director. Instead, a theater "applauds" the corporation or person who's helped most in the past year.

Two Madison theaters commemorated individuals on their boards. Jeanne Barrett was acknowledged by the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, and Melverne Cooke was cited by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey.

Others praised employees, such as the Paper Mill Playhouse's Mickey McNany-Damian, who heads the Junior Players at the Millburn theater. She pointed out, in a witty parody of a rhymed children's book, that the program has grown in 18 years from eight students to 592.

Volunteers such as Art and Joan Barron, who contribute to Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven, as well as Dick Blofson -NT ) and Scotia MacRae, who donate time and energy to Passage Theatre Company of Trenton, were also cited.

Eric Hafen, artistic director of the Bickford Theatre in Morris Township, honored Ellie Nice, who founded a guild that raises funds and increases the subscriber base.

Michael Stotts, managing director for the George Street Playhouse, applauded John Risley, owner of the Northstar Cafe in New Brunswick for providing food for opening night parties. "He comes to our assistance any time we call," said Stotts, "and we call frequently."

Said Risley, "But we benefit from people coming to George Street. This is an extra honor I didn't expect."

Stephen L. Fredericks, executive director of the Growing Stage in Netcong, a children's theater, waxed rhapsodic over Marcia Lawrence, the volunteer box office manager. He said that she must "listen to parents" and "attend runny noses" while maintaining "a sincere and understanding glazed smile on her face." Only after a minute's worth of tribute did he divulge that Lawrence was also his mother-in-law.

Similarly, Jane Mandel, artistic director of Luna Stage in Montclair, cited her husband, Frankie Faison (the only actor to appear in all four Hannibal Lecter films) as the "star of stage, screen and our parking lot." Mandel and managing director Charlotte McKim recalled his unloading trucks, removing garbage and conducting acting workshops.

Mandel also mentioned that the previous night, an actor scheduled to open this weekend in Luna's production of "Voice of Good Hope," could not go on. "Frankie stepped in, and will now spend his waking hours learning the part."

A bemused Faison gave his wife a quick glance and said, "But in most of these things, I have no choice."

Two theaters praised donations from local businesses. Gabor Barabas, executive producer of New Jersey Repertory Theatre in Long Branch, gave his award to Todd Katz of Siperstein's, a chain of home decorating stores. "We've smeared our walls with his paint so many times that our theater is now half the size it used to be," joked Barabas.

Katz added that Barabas originally told him "he just needed a little paint" for his 62-seat theater. He then glanced at the 375-seat George Street facility. "If he's looking to move to a space this size, I'm a little worried."

Lenny Bart, artistic director of 12 Miles West Theatre Company in Montclair, praised Michael Fried for providing an eye-catching brochure that helped double attendance. "He only admonishes me when I don't call him for help."

The evening's centerpiece was the Star Award, presented to the person who has made the most outstanding contribution to the professional theater scene. Barbara Futon Morn, now executive director of the New Jersey Cultural Trust, received the honor.

First, Paper Mill education director Susan Speidel, alliance associate Dee Bill and others paid tribute in song, singing lyrics by El White, who morphed the Beach Boys' hit "Barbara Ann" into "Barbara Morn." Another song poked fun at her 16-year relationship that finally culminated in a marriage this summer. Then another, augmented by a slide show, that displayed the myriad of hairstyles that Morn has worn during her 19-year stint on the New Jersey arts scene.

In her speech that followed, Morn returned the favor by praising the alliance, as well as "the opportunity to have witnessed so many New Jersey theaters in all stages of their development."

Though he didn't receive an award of his own, Stotts was applauded throughout the evening, as many offered him a fond goodbye before he leaves George Street in December to assume the managing directorship of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn.

Fisher dies

Thursday, September 26, 2002

Stewart Fisher, the associate artistic director of the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, died suddenly Sunday from heart failure. He was 37.

Fisher collapsed while holding auditions for the next New Jersey Rep production, "Spain" by Jim Knable.

At New Jersey Rep, Stewart directed "Ends," the company's inaugural production, in 1999. He also staged "Adult Fiction," "The Girl with the High Rouge," "Naked By the River" and "Slave Shack." He was a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and lived in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Fisher was married to Dana Benningfield, New Jersey Repertory's literary director and a member of the company's acting troupe, who was last seen in "The Laramie Project."

Funeral arrangements were private. A memorial will be held at the theater at a later date.

As a result, the production of "Spain" that had been scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 24 has been canceled. "We would not be able to do justice to the play, to Stewart or to Stewart's vision right now," said artistic director SuzAnne Barabas.

Published in the Asbury Park Press 9/25/02

Stewart Fisher, 37, assistant artistic director of the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, died suddenly Sunday, according to theater publicist Debbie Mura.

According to Mura, Stewart, Brooklyn, had been conducting final auditions for the NJ Rep's upcoming production of Jim Knable's "Spain" when he collapsed and died at his New York studio. An actress and an NJ Rep company member had performed CPR to no avail, according to Mura, who said the theater has decided not to pursue the production that would have opened in Long Branch on Oct. 25.

"We would not be able to do justice to the play, to Stewart or to Stewart's vision right now," explained Artistic Director SuzAnne Barabas.

Funeral arrangements as of yesterday had not been announced. Stewart's parents live in Seattle, Mura said.

At NJ Rep, Stewart had directed the company's inaugural production, "Ends" by David Alex; "Adult Fiction" by Brian Mori; "The Girl with the High Rouge" by Vincent Sessa; "Naked by the River" and "Slave Shack" by Michael Folie and many staged readings.

A memorial will be held at the theater at a later date, according to Mura.

Co-founder of N.J. Rep new director of arts council

VERONICA YANKOWSKI Dr. Gabor Barabas, co-founder of the New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch, will head the newly formed Long Branch Arts Council.

By gloria stravelli

Staff Writer

To support its emerging arts district, the city of Long Branch has created a Long Branch Arts Council and has named Dr. Gabor Barabas as director of the new arts organization.

Created by ordinance, the arts council will have five members appointed by the mayor and council to serve three-year terms. The council’s mission will be to support performing and visual artists and help locate venues where they can pursue their art.

Barabas, a West Long Branch physician and co-founder of N.J. Repertory Company in Long Branch, will serve a one-year term on the council, which actually succeeds a defunct arts group that once played a limited role in the cultural life of the city. As director of the arts council, Barabas said he sees his role as "fostering, very powerfully, the idea that Long Branch is a wonderful environment for the arts.

"I would like to make certain that all the arts are represented," he noted "and there comes a time where there is an annual festival of the arts in Long Branch."

Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider said the role of the arts group will be to engage the community and enrich the lives of residents.

"It will promote and expand the role of the arts in our community, and get people who live in Long Branch involved in either seeing or participating in various forms of the performing and visual arts," said Schneider.

In addition, he said, the arts council will have an educational component, provide a place for performing or creating art, and help community arts organizations get funding in the form of grants.

Schneider said the city will support the inception of the arts council, provide funds for it, "then get out of the way."

He said funding is still being discussed at the City Council level.

"It could have a small budget because it’s an entity of the city," he said. "We’ve had some discussions," adding there are currently no plans for a home for the group.

The mayor noted that Long Branch had an arts council from 1998-2000, but the all-volunteer group had dwindled into inactivity.

When Barabas approached him with the idea of reviving an arts council, he said, he supported the concept.

"It’s really exciting, said Schneider, noting that the arts council will reinforce plans to develop an arts district in downtown Long Branch on Broadway.

Plans for a contemporary visual arts center in downtown Broadway are moving forward, he said, and N.J. Rep has established a reputation for presenting quality theater.

"It all reflects very well on the city," he said. "We’re not as expensive as some other areas in Monmouth County, and the arts will bring in other economic benefits like restaurants, cafes and people coming into town.

"Plus it has its own benefit," he noted. "Art is supposed to help you look at the world differently, be it theater, painting or sculpture. Once you do that, it never goes back. To me that’s a big benefit to the town," he added.

Barabas said he sees the arts council’s primary role as nurturing local artists.

"I want to make sure we tap into the local talent because there are many talented artists in the area," he said. "I want to make certain we encourage their work and assist in their growth and identify an audience for their work.

"A festival would just be icing on the cake," he said. "It’s more the day-to-day work, the encouragement and support we want to provide, as well as attract audiences and artists."

A neurologist, Barabas has a private pediatric neurology practice, and is head of pediatric neurology for Monmouth Medical Center, a position he shares with his brother, Ronald.

"I think at this time I have the best sense of how to plant strong roots for the organization," Barabas said of his role in fostering the new group. "It’s a privilege to be the one who has the opportunity to resurrect it and place it on a strong footing, and then someone else will take over, then someone else, then someone else."

Co-founder of N.J. Rep with his wife, Suzanne, Barabas said he worked to promote the idea of reviving an arts council, believing the timing is right.

"When our theater made Long Branch its home five years ago, I reached out to other arts organizations. At the time there was a greater Long Branch Arts Council that had been active, but over the years had fallen by the wayside," he said.

Barabas sees reviving the arts council as being in concert with the theater company’s mission. In addition to developing new plays, the company seeks to play a vital role in the redevelopment of Long Branch, he explained.

"On the basis of that mission, I approached the mayor and city administrator to ask them whether it wasn’t time to resurrect the Long Branch Arts Council, especially given all the activity now taking place in Long Branch," he said.

"I felt this was a time where a council would be important, given the anticipated influx of arts organizations like the planned Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts," he explained. "There are many individuals and organizations in the area involved with visual arts, poetry, literature, performing arts, music and dance, where it would be important for there to be a coordinating body to help foster these activities."

City officials were very receptive to the idea, he noted.

Barabas disclosed that N.J. Rep recently acquired a 100-year-old building located on Broadway a block away from the Lumia Theatre at 179 Broadway.

The company will need to raise about $350,000 to renovate the structure, he said.

"It’s a very derelict-looking building nicknamed ‘the Alamo’ by residents in the area," he said, adding plans call for an art gallery, space for community arts organizations, and a central box office in the space.

"We’re trying to play a role in galvanizing the arts," he explained.

The theater company’s present building, the Lumia Theatre, was donated to N.J. Rep in 1997 by David and Margaret Lumia whose business had outgrown the space.

"They wanted to give something back to the community," Barabas explained, "and they wanted to donate the building to a nonprofit that could do the most to help revitalize the area."

The Lumias donated the building to N.J. Rep which raised $250,000 to renovate the facade and create two performance spaces. The project was a harbinger of things to come.

"It was the first major facade to be redone in the area in decades," Barabas noted.

N.J. Rep’s audiences represent a cross-section from throughout New Jersey and beyond, he said.

According to Barabas, between 8-10 percent of its audience is drawn from New York City, and the theater’s reputation has grown beyond the region. "Some of our plays are now being produced throughout the country," he said, adding that about 1,000 scripts per season are submitted to the theater company.

A poet and playwright, Barabas has written plays presented at N.J. Rep, and has produced the professional premieres of several works at the theater. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

The arts council, he said, will directly affect artists and performers by providing a city-sponsored entity to support their work, and will have a major impact for the city and its residents.

"It will have a tremendous impact on the businesses and restaurants in the area," he said, "and I think it will help to identify Long Branch as an exciting environment for people from surrounding communities.

"Broadway has always been the main artery, the heart and soul of the city," he added.

According to Barabas, the arts council will have a strong educational component and will undertake a major outreach to children, adolescents and young adults aimed at helping them achieve their artistic potential and at educating future audiences.

Barabas came to the United States in 1956 at age 7 when his parents fled the Hungarian Revolution. His involvement with the theater came as a result of his wife’s theater background, he said. While Barabas was attending medical school at the University of Cincinnati in 1970, he and his wife co-founded Cincinnati Repertory Company, which grew into a major children’s theater touring company. After graduation, Barabas was a resident in pediatrics and neurology at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia where the Barabases founded American Repertory Theater, which presented avant garde works. They also started a children’s luncheon theater.

He relocated to New Jersey to take a position as head of pediatric neurology at Rutgers Medical School, now the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick.

While at UMDNJ, Barabas was frequently invited to the area to lecture and see patients. In 1983, he accepted a position as head of child neurology at Monmouth Medical Center.

Five years ago he said, the Barabases decided to "produce plays the way we’d always wanted, which was to do new works."

The couple began looking for theater space first in nearby Red Bank but decided instead on Long Branch.

"Not only could we make an artistic contribution, but a substantial social contribution as well, because the community had no theater, no organized arts group," he said.

"This was an ideal environment. We were not going into an affluent area, but it was to be a catalyst to jump-start things."

Founding the theater company has not been without its challenges, he said. "It’s been quite a struggle," he acknowledged. "We certainly have succeeded tremendously from the artistic standpoint, but only the community can judge whether we’ve succeeded from the social standpoint."

There is a funny play at the center of Kim Carney’s Maggie Rose at New Jersey Repertory Company. When the layers of moralistic religiosity fall away, the play is very amusing. Ms. Carney is a gifted writer of character and situation comedy, and her play, blessed here with a skilled ensemble cast and expert direction, is at times even hilarious. If some of it is repetitious and overwritten, that is easy to fix. It is, after all, still a “work in progress,” in the NJ Rep tradition.

Maggie Rose suffered a shocking death while cleaning an electrical socket (in the local funeral parlor, no less) with a wet rag. Several days later, Maggie’s mother Virginia (Susan G. Bob) is struggling to write a eulogy while Maggie’s daughter Dawn (Kittson O’Neill) is looting her late mother’s closet. Jerry (Al H. Mohrmann), Maggie’s erstwhile hanger-on, is in his usual alcoholic haze. The three are lamenting the passing, when what to their wondering eyes should appear, but Maggie herself, alive and still here.

Kittson O’Neill (left), Ames Adamson and Kathleen Gold- paugh in a scene from Maggie Rose at the NewJersey Repertory Company, Long Branch.. Photo: Scott Longfield

Everyone except Maggie knew she was dead; she’d even been embalmed. After the expected double- and triple-takes (Ms. O’Neill’s reaction, a combination of wonder and fear, is priceless), they settle into acceptance and try to figure out “the dead thing.” Is it, as the addled funeral director (Ames Adamson) believes, a “Second Coming”? No one can figure it out, and therein lies the best feature of this original play: No one does figure it out. Maggie simply rose, is all.

The play is structured like a wheel, with Maggie at the hub. Everything happens to her, around her, or because of her, and Kathleen Goldpaugh couldn’t be better as the reluctant center of attention. Maggie had been a passive, put upon soul; she emerges, reborn, with a mind of her own, making decisions she had avoided before. (Wouldn’t we all welcome a similar opportunity!) Ms. Goldpaugh plays Maggie’s wonderment wonderfully; she’s most engaging. Susan G. Bob, she of the nasal intonation, uses that quality to advantage as Maggie’s snappish mother. She undercuts the action with wry sarcasm, delivered with exquisite timing. Ms. O’Neill, a size 10 (8?) stuffed into Mom’s size 6 dress, finds the middle ground between alluring and blowsy. Her trailer park ingenue is perfection.

The way to play a drunk is to play a drunk who’s trying not to appear drunk, and Mr. Mohrmann’s performance is a master class. Throughout, he’s just barely in control of his faculties, if not his facilities. It’s a fine, controlled comedic performance. Less controlled is Mr. Adamson, whose antics are boisterously entertaining. He becomes a cross between a desperate show-biz agent and an over-the-top evangelist, with a smidgen of Paul Lynde tossed in. What the actor demonstrated in last month’s Panama is confirmed here: If you’re casting for outrageous, call Adamson.

Some of Ms. Carney’s sharpest comedy is abetted in grand style by the subtle playing of Tom McNelly as Reverend Billey, the local preacher whose deformed right hand becomes the object of the most laugh-provoking scene in recent memory. His inability to shuffle cards or play a band instrument may be obvious jokes, but they’re so slickly written and cannily delivered, that even this PC observer slapped his knee. And I for one will never again see “air quotes” without smiling at the image of Rev. Billey’s half-handed effort. The miracle-healing exchange between McNelly and Goldpaugh is an absolute gem. Rounding out the cast, Raymond Schmoll plays a bit part sensitively.

One hopes that director SuzAnne Barabas will have a hand in pruning the script (the first act bogs down midpoint), but her styling of the play and its characters needs no tinkering. Under her guidance, the women are believable as a three-generation family; even their differences aid the illusion. And the men’s actor-leashes are just the right lengths. Scenic designer Valerie Green continues the NJ Rep tradition of admirable settings, even if the decor does suggest a standard higher than your average trailer park.

There’s an overlong and unnecessary coda, in which Maggie hears The Word and turns introspective and forgiving. Ironically, her conversion costs the play the “spiritually uplifting” quality that’s claimed for it. What really was uplifting and gratifying was the former doormat’s assertive rejection of her loutish boyfriend, her carping mother, and her selfish daughter. “Good for you,” we thought, knowing they’d remain in her life, but on her terms. Then God tells Maggie to forgive and forget, and she gets all warm blooded on us. But her new found Religion is a Lifetime Channel resolution that takes the bite out of Maggie Rose and Maggie Rose. She was more lovable with embalming fluid in her veins. And much more bloody funny.

Black comedy manic and funny

Published in the Asbury Park Press 8/13/02

Here's an interesting twist for all of those who seek the miraculous within the most mundane of things: a truly miraculous event treated in the most mundane of manners.

MAGGIE ROSE presented by the New Jersey Repertory Company at the Lumia Theatre, Long Branch WHEN:8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays (through Sept. 15) TICKETS, INFO:$30. (732)229-3166.

In "Maggie Rose," the comedy currently enjoying its East Coast premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company's Lumia Theatre in Long Branch, a recently deceased cleaning woman who has been certifiably stone cold dead (and even embalmed) for days sits up in her coffin and returns to her trailer in Bath, Michigan, in a futile attempt to resume her anonymous life.

Her grasping loved ones and opportunistic neighbors have other designs on her reclaimed time, however, and it's not long before the modest mobile home is the focal point for everything from talk-show bidding wars to spiritual pilgrimages.

The play as written by Michigan-based Kim Carney doesn't delve too deep as far as the whys and wherefores of this Midwest miracle; its chosen targets (media feeding frenzies, faith healing for dollars, Oprah worship) are plump pushovers and the whole thing operates largely at the level of an OK sitcom. It's up to the actors (under the direction of SuzAnne Barabas) to put this featherweight black comedy across, and this founding light of the NJ Rep company has assembled a cast (led by Kathleen Goldpaugh as the overwhelmed and underappreciated title character) with the goods -- and the good looks -- to pull it off, without necessarily resorting to stereotypes. In fact, if Ms. Goldpaugh's portrayal tends to sidestep our ideal of a trailer-trash queen, it may be due to the notion that the conflicted and conscience-driven Maggie is less of a self-promoting exhibitionist than her real-life Springer-land counterparts.

PETER ACKERMAN photo The cast of "Maggie Rose" includes (from left) Ames Adamson, Susan G. Bob, Kathleen Goldpaugh and Kittson O'Neill.

It all takes place within a fully paneled and knick-knacked set design by Valerie Green that's sufficiently rich in detail to elicit a few chuckles even before the first player appears (although perhaps a Stroh's beer sign would have completed the picture). The actors use the doors, windows and beaded curtains to great comic effect, while lighting and sound directors Jeff Greenberg and Merek Royce Press conjure up the encroaching world outside with a facility that never betrays the fact that this crew lost nearly a week of tech rehearsal time during the Long Branch power outages.

Also seemingly part of the furniture in the Rose trailer -- and engaged in the redistribution of the late Maggie's appliances as the play opens -- are the unholy threesome of Maggie-mom Virginia (Susan G. Bob), daughter Dawn (Kittson O'Neill) and alcoholic lout boyfriend Jerry (Al H. Mohrmann, a long way from his sympathetic ALS sufferer in 'Till Morning Comes").

While this trio of NJ Rep regulars have an infectious amount of fun with their broadly written parts, playwright Carney appears to have reserved the show's biggest moments for the characters of Reverend Billey and mortician Mr. DeLuca. As respectively portrayed by Tom McNelly and Ames Adamson (who proved his mastery of physical schtick five times over with his turn in the recent "Panama"), these frustrated, barely functional pillars of the community get to faint, grovel, go into seizures and deliver a hilarious pair of comic confessions -- all to hang their pathetic needs upon the shoulders of the reluctant miracle woman.

There are times, however, when the play looks to be on the verge of succumbing to the same disease that's afflicted nearly every sitcom since Mary Tyler Moore; when our central character is forced to play eyeball-rolling straight woman to a supporting cast of assorted mixed nuts. Then lo and behold, the author grants Maggie a dialogue of sorts with the ever-inscrutable God (and an encounter with a kindly neighbor played by Raymond Schmoll) that allows Goldpaugh to claim her rightful place at the heart of the tale.

It's a cornfed affirmation of faith that makes for a sweet ending to this cynical story, and it's undoubtedly the most moving soliloquy you'll see this year from a performer with her butt in a birdbath.

TriCityNews

A Very Lively Maggie Rose
Theatre Review

LONG BRANCH - Once again eschewing drama for comedy during these humid summer months, the New Jersey Repertory Company is currently staging the East Coast premiere of the comedy "Maggie Rose".

It's a as light as air, crowd pleasing soufflé of a play that will satisfy audience members - but won't spoil their dinners. When it's all over, you'll remember having a great time.

The title character of "Maggie Rose" must deal with a peculiar dilemma - she's died and come back to life, and she struggles to understand why.

Additionally, she must handle a thieving tart of a daughter, a trailer park version of Joan Crawford for a mother, an alcoholic, unemployed, cheatin' lug of a boyfriend and an obnoxious, money hungry Ritalin-deprived loony of an employer.

Is it any wonder that the first act ends with Maggie holding a knife to her throat?

Luckily for her (and the audience) Reverend Billey shows up as the second act opens and manages to talk her down.

Meanwhile, the carnival outside her motor home grows; news has leaked of her return from the dead. Religious fanatics, news people, and celebrity seekers join her dysfunctional extended family in tormenting Maggie.

How does she come to terms with all that happened to her and all that is swirling around her?

Who cares? It's the journey not the destination that's important here. Hitting 1st, 2nd and third bases provides the thrills and laughs. Home plate is an after-thought.

NJ Rep veteran Kathleen Goldpaugh hits all the right notes as Maggie - think of Sally Field as Norma Rae minus that pesky union business.

Al H. Mohrmann is an entertaining scamp as Maggie's boyfriend Jerry (and anyone who caught his earlier appearance on this stage in "Till Morning Comes" will be doubly impressed with his performance here), and Susan G. Bob creates a wonderful caricature as her raspy, brittle mom. Kittson O'Neill as daughter Dawn earns extra points for stomping around the stage in precarious wedges without falling over, as well as her portrayal.

In his debut at NJ Rep, Tom McNelly as Rev. Billey turns in a finely comedic and touching performance that will make you want to go home and say a bedtime prayer that he's cast again and again at NJ Rep.

And, as he was in June's production of "Panama", Ames Adamson as Mr. DeLuca is a physical and a comedic force of nature you can't take your eyes off.

Which brings us to another force of nature - a certain surprise storm a few Fridays ago that inflicted much damage on the area.

Because of that storm, and the resulting power loss to much of Long Branch, the schedule of performances for "Maggie Rose" had to be tinkered with. So it would be remiss not to note the technical crew of this production.

Not surprisingly, the sound and lighting at a NJ Rep production is as top rate as the acting and material selected. Indeed, because of its very quality, it's easy to overlook. Sound effects and lighting cues are never missed and always appropriate.

The sets have always been marvels, as is the case with this production, and the costuming perfect (reference those shoes on Kittson above).

Need a break from all your worries? Forget Cheers! Seek Maggie out.

The Coaster

NJ Repertory Company "Maggie Rose": Life (and laughs) After Death by Robert F. Carroll

Advance publicity for Kim Carney's "Maggie Rose" prepared audiences for a spiritually uplifting play at the New Jersey Repertory Company premiere last weekend.

What audiences saw was a witty soap opera of a play that presents life after death at not too different, but certainly funnier -- maybe even more uplifting -- than mortal existence.

Kathleen Goldpaugh is the bewildered Maggie of this wry comedy, a woman who surprises everybody, mostly herself, by strolling back into her trailer home three days after her death.

Maggie might even have welcomed death, dragged down in life as she was by a drunken lout of a boyfriend, Jerry; a self-centered daughter, Dawn, and a sarcastic crone of a mother, Virginia.

A cleaning woman in life, Maggie can't get used to the idea of being dead, or being alive either. Momma (Susan Bob), daughter (Kittson O'Neill) and boyfriend (Al Mohrmann) cope pretty well, though, after the initial shock. They even return Maggie's hair dryer, TV, mixer and a few other possessions distributed after her demise. And Jerry even proposes.

Maggie's death really derails Mr. DeLuca (Ames Adamson), the local undertaker, who is at first rendered speechless by the presumed miracle. But then he springs back -- at least the pitch-man in him springs back -- after realizing that life-after-death, as he notes, can be "bigger than Disney". The conniving Adamson, who can raise groveling to high art, all but steals the show -- which isn't easy given the professionalism of this superb cast.

Bob, as the persnickety momma, filters death through her own crabbed view of life. Young Dawn eventually takes her mom's death, and rebirth, in stride. So does Jerry, who believes death and resurrection shouldn't interrupt drinking, concupiscence or cashing in on a sure thing.

Tom McNelly adds a hilarious touch as the local pastor, Rev. Billey, prepared to offer comfort to a woman, Maggie, who isn't really sure of her death, her rebirth, or anything else, but certainly doesn't care for any discussion about God. Lovable Maggie herself ruminates on her strange situation in a touching monologue that brings down the curtain.

Director SuzAnne Barabas suggest that the play has a lot to say about the culture of celebrity and everybody's grab for a piece of the action. But rarely has a writer made the grabbing so entertaining, and "Maggie Rose" is immensely entertaining.

The LINK News August 15, 2002
By Milt Bernstein
"MAGGIE ROSE" Combines Mystery and Humor

Long Branch - "Maggie Rose", the new play by Kim Carney being offered by the NJ Repertory, here on Broadway, is a marvelous combination of suspense and humor. It is a mystery of life (and death) wrapped up and served inside an uproarious family picture gallery of characters.

The play, originally presented in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is having its East Coast and New Jersey premiere here; and it is a good enough one, in this writer's opinion, to be seen and taken up by lots of other discerning producers in the area, not excluding New York.

The story revolves around the lady of the title who it is believed, has died in an accident; but who turns up again several days later undeniably alive; and the complications that ensue are fast, furious, and extremely funny.

The title character is beautifully played by Kathleen Goldpaugh, who has been featured in several previous NJ Rep productions, and she is greatly supported by the rest of the cast, which include Kittson O'Neill as her voluptuous but demanding daughter, Susan G. Bob as her acid-tongued mother, Al H. Mohrmann as her one-idea-pants-connected boyfriend, Ames Adamson as an opportunistic funeral director, and Tom McNelly as a well-meaning young minister.

SuzAnne Barabas, a co-founder of the theatre group, directed most skillfully; and the scenery, lighting, costuming and sound were all first-rate.

This not-to-be-missed production will be here for five more weekends.

The (other) rising: NJ Rep premieres 'spiritually uplifting' comedy

Published in the Asbury Park Press 8/09/02

JOYRIDE INTO THE ZONE

NJ Rep's "Panama" Brings the Mayhem

How's this for a classy evening at the legitimate stage: start with a purely materialistic quest, centered around a completely self-absorbed lout who murders his doctor mere seconds into the first act. Throw in a Jesus Christ look-alike and a pair of natural-born killer wannabe's. Add a bit of simulated oral and some brashly brandished semiautomatic weapons, then salt liberally with language that would make Jay and Silent Bob blanch and fumble for the thesaurus.

Like, who says live theater can't compete with the cream of popular culture?

With "Panama," the new play now in its world premiere engagement at Long Branch's Lumia Theatre, the folks at New Jersey Repertory Company let their hair down in a big way, blowing off the pent-up steam of a season that's heretofore concentrated on such heavy fare as "The Laramie Project" and "The Dead Boy." Having proven themselves in the genre of issue-driven drama with the recently staged "Slave Shack," playwright Michael T. Folie and director Stewart Fisher have returned to lower Broadway with a comedy of ill manners that's seemingly hell-bent on confounding the senses while offending all sensibilities. It's a comedy that just might win you over with its peculiar brand of cheerfully mounted mayhem, provided you approach it in the right frame of mind.

All epic quests have got to have their hero, and in "Panama" the central role of Man - a sort of berserk Bob Vila whose panic over the prospect of eventual mortality causes him to embark upon a selfish sojourn in search of a near-mythic eternal-life treatment - is embodied to polo-shirted perfection by Gary Lamadore. While his bellyaching and impulsiveness are on a par with plenty of dysfunctional Fox-TV dads, his Wife (Maura O'Brien) seems to have been beamed back from some forgotten 50's sitcom. The two exist on separate channels in more ways than one; their soulless, sexless marriage is kept on life support primarily through the total sublimation of her own desires - although it doesn't take her long to discover how to get what she wants with the help of a Glock.

Hitting the road in hopes of extorting cash from his Grandma (Ian August, striking just the right drag note between Terry Jones and Dame Edna) and Grandpa (Neal Arluck) - a pair of plaid-clad perverts who spend their Arizona days rehearsing Beckett in Rubbermaid trash cans - Man and Wife stop to pick up a couple of nihilistic nitwits (Jacob White, Rozie Bacchi) who seem to have seen the Brad Pitt thrill-kill flick "Kalifornia" a few dozen times too many. Soon this multigenerational Mansonesque clan is bound for the coast; killing scores of cops, humping each other like baboons and turning such quaint concepts as faith, family, monogamy and Disney into so much roadkill in their wake.

As the ersatz Christ figure, it's up to Brian O'Halloran (the legendary Dante of Kevin Smith's "Clerks") to salvage a few scraps of dignity from the proceedings, even when the role calls for him