First Nighter: Happy "Happy Birthday"
Happy Birthday
The Huffington Post
David Finkle
March 22, 2013
When First Lady of the American Stage Helen Hayes was looking around for a change-of-pace property in the early 1940s, savvy Anita Loos got wind of the search and came up with Happy Birthday, wherein teetotaler Addie Bernis timidly enters Newark's Jersey Mecca Cocktail Bar, a jumping spot at which her alcoholic father does much of his daily dissipating.
Before Addie leaves, she's changed her ways so radically that she's not only found the loving banker of her dreams and favorably altered the fortunes of everyone in the place but has belted out "I Haven't Got a Worry in the World," which the production's original producers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammersteins II wrote.
Recognizing the fun that can be had with this example of a barroom play and with what was really intended as a 1946 vehicle for Hayes (who won a Tony in the fling), Scott Alan Evans, the artistic director of The Actors Company Theatre, has pumped new life into the piece at the Beckett.
No one will ever make a case for Happy Birthday being one of the great plays -- Loos herself would undoubtedly have laughed at the thought -- but Evans in his capacity as the dusting-off director and the 15-member cast couldn't be zippier as they crowd the place with their personal intrigues and their turns dancing to "Melancholy Baby"on the jukebox that set designer Brett J. Banakis has placed upstage.
As Addie, Mary Bacon inebriates amusingly while building to, among other escapades, a tango executed with the proprietor's husky son Don (Tom Berklund). As the tough-talking but kindly proprietor Gayle, Karen Ziemba does a remarkable job playing against type. This is a character turn that could very nicely broaden her impressive career to date.