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With produced musicals by women composers as scarce as hen's teeth, it's noteworthy that area residents get two opportunities to see works by Polly Pen this summer: "Bed & Sofa", currently playing at Lakeland Theatre, with "Goblin Market" following at Cain Park in August.
Pen's sly, quirky musicals are closer to chamber operas; they feature tiny casts, open harmonies, and unusual librettos. "Bed and Sofa" is as offbeat as they come, and although the Lakeland production has flaws, nevertheless, it's hauntingly memorable.
The plot is based on a 1926 Russian silent movie by Abram Room. During a Soviet housing shortage, put-upon housewife Ludmilla (Beth O. Cubbison) and her brutish husband Kolya (Eric Neumore) take in the sensitive Volodya (Curtis Proctor), Kolya's old Army buddy. "You take the sofa", Ludmilla sings shyly, "we'll take the bed". That phrase comes back in endless permutations, as a sexual triangle shifts the power between them: Ludmilla and Volodya become lovers, with Kolya exiled to the sofa, with further complications as Ludmilla begins to realize how trapped she is by the oppressive attitudes of both men.
"Bed and Sofa" puts silent movie conventions on stage, to varying results. Laurence Klavan's intriguing libretto builds songs on compressed shards of phrases that repeat and change. It's as though we're hearing the silent movie titles rather than full dialogue -- "The stain! The drain!" -- but the odd repetitions pay off dramatically. Alison Hernan's throaty contralto provides droll voiceover scene introductions, spewing ironic Soviet aphorisms with a "Boris and Natasha" accent.
Director Gustavo Urdaneta is less successful with the mimed silent movie scenes; they're not precise enough, so too often they come off as overacting rather than gestural conventions. And the Lakeland proscenium stage isn't a felicitous setting for what should be a spare, intimate piece. The show is overmiked, which too often muddies the lyrics. Keith Nagy's literal set design is a drag on the delicate work: there are so many unnecessary set pieces added and taken away during scene changes, the blackouts for furniture moving add a good eight minutes to what should be a 75-minute show.
Of the three cast members, Cubbison and Proctor are repeating their roles from Walter Grodzik's acclaimed 1998 Dobama production, with Neumore stepping into the role that Urdaneta originally sang. Neumore has handsome Slavic looks, but his voice is too light: he doesn't have the bottom notes for the bass-baritone role. As Kolodya, Proctor has a transparent tenor and his mobile face shows every shifting emotion. Cubbison's rich soprano is hampered most by the miking, but she excels in her solos. And the scene between Cubbison and Proctor, as they watch a movie together, is wonderful: it's a glimpse of how good the show could be.