Review: THE ANDREWS BROTHERS Blends Farce and Revue at Saint Vincent Summer Theatre

If you've read my column for a while, you'll know there are two or three things I get very excited about every summer. One is the Kennywood food festival (currently waiting for press pass approval), another is Pittsburgh CLO's summer season (tickets already booked), and the third is the Saint Vincent Summer Theatre. It's a hometown institution where you always know what you're getting: a farce or a small-scale nostalgic musical revue, complete with popcorn and outdoor entertainment after. It's as American as apple pie, and never fails to deliver. 

This year, director Greggory Brandt and choreographer Renata Marino (a team with a long history of work together at this venue) have blended the slapstick farce and the retro-musical genres in their presentation of jukebox musical superstar Roger Bean's The Andrews Brothers. It may be a paper-thin confection, but a farce is a farce is a farce, and this one packed in more belly laughs than I was expecting.

The plot here may appear at first to be a discount Plaid, but it's actually more indebted in tone to The Three Amigos than anything else. It's 1945, and Max, Lawrence and Patrick Andrews (Ashton Guthrie, Ryan Sammonds and Anthony Marino Jr., respectively) are three 4F washouts, doing their duty to Uncle Sam by running an understaffed USO revue. When Patrick winds up smitten with adorkable pinup girl Peggy Jones (Taylor Ruffo), whose big show will be cancelled due to the absence of the famous Andrews Sisters, the "Andrews Brothers" decide to save the day by dressing in drag and impersonating the legendary trio. Chaos, naturally, ensues. 

The four-person cast is uniformly solid, funny and tuneful. Taylor Ruffo has one of those voices that feels familiar the minute you hear it. She sings, dances and lands laughs with aplomb; as Peggy the pinup queen performs onstage and does damage control offstage, Ruffo plays to every corner of her resume as Peggy goes silly, sexy, brassy, sweet and aww-shucks wholesome. Her love interest Patrick, played by Anthony Marino Jr., comes the closest to stealing the show; in the Three Amigos tradition he is clearly the Martin Short. Gifted with the strongest physical comedy of the trio, the pint-sized Marino is constantly called on to go either ramrod-rigid or boneless, leaving Peggy and his brothers to save him from himself. There's a moment in Act 2 when the brothers are doing prop comedy, and Marino gets his wig knocked off. He immediately goes zombie stiff, and the other two men must both continue doing the rope schtick, while putting his wig back on AND keeping his locked body from falling over. This thirty seconds alone is worth the price of admission.

Ashton Guthrie's Max is the Steve Martin, the straight man with a dry wit and a knack for a quick quip. Because he's the least overtly goofy of the trio, much of the musical heft falls to him to hold together, and he does so admirably. Meanwhile, our Chevy Chase is Ryan Sammonds as Lawrence, who thinks he's suave and capable but can't stop making a fool of himself. There's a great running gag of Lawrence overestimating his eyesight, requiring him to juggle cue cards, cheater eyeglasses, and his choreography, and Sammonds nails it every time. 

Farce often requires close coordination with the technical team, and Chad Castillo's set design and Beth Shari's endless cascade of costumes look simple but are in constant motion and change. There aren't any doors to slam, but this USO outpost has more going on than is initially apparent, just like the show itself. Though the generation nostalgic for songs about rationing and war bonds is rapidly dwindling, I don't think you had to be there to get the appeal of tight harmonies and retro style. After all, in this digital age, things accumulate instead of falling out of consciousness. I'm sure I'm not the only person glad to take this journey back into someone else's memory lane, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the summer holds here.