Theatre Review

Lightweight comedy at Ocean State Theatre

By Don Fowler
Posted 2/12/16

Tom Dulack’s lightweight comedy about the Mafia financing a college professor’s play is the type of fare you usually find at a local dinner theatre. Serve them up a huge buffet, give them a …

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Theatre Review

Lightweight comedy at Ocean State Theatre

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Tom Dulack’s lightweight comedy about the Mafia financing a college professor’s play is the type of fare you usually find at a local dinner theatre. Serve them up a huge buffet, give them a couple of drinks, and make them laugh with a plethora of ethnic and risqué jokes.

Director Fred Sullivan Jr. has taken “Breaking Legs,” cast it with good actors, perfected the comic timing, put them in a set comparable to one of Rhode Island’s finest restaurants, and milked the most out of it.

You don’t have to think much watching “Breaking Legs.” There’s little subtlety in the humor. While the Ocean State Theatre audience laughed often at the multitude of Italian references, it did seem a bit over the top when it came to stereotypes.

Christopher Swan is very good as the professor-turned-playwright who is looking for financial backing to launch his play.

Sophia Blum plays Angie, his loud, brassy former student who convinces her family to back him. The naïve professor doesn’t realize what he is getting into. The funniest moments of the play are watching Swan’s reactions to what the family say and do.

Cleo Zani plays Angie’s father, who has one goal in mind: marrying off his daughter. But of course, she’ll have to live at home. All of the family lives in close proximity.

Brandon Whitehead plays the stereotypical family Don, with Chris Perrotti as his yes-man, providing words of over two syllables to complete his sentences. Mark Cartier rounds out the cast as Uncle Frankie, the poor guy who has to pay for not paying his debt.

Not a lot happens in the play, so director Sullivan keeps it moving at a fast pace until the crux of the action in the final 15 minutes, when the family dissects the play they are paying for until it is totally unrecognizable.

It is the final scene that made the rest of the play tolerable for me, proving that good acting and directing can bring out the best in the material.

At Ocean State Theatre through February 14. Call 921-6800 for reservations.

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