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This past Friday was the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre's (MET) opening night performance of William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Time of Your Life, directed by Karen Paisley, with costume design by Atif Rome, lighting design by Kyle Shelley and sound design by Donna Miller.

Among the things that make the MET a unique experience for the theatre-goer is how they set the mood from the moment you walk into the lobby. There is always background music befitting the theme, in this instance period music from the 1930s.  I also like the dexterity of the theatre space. The design for Saroyan's work features stadium seating that flanks the barroom set that - especially for those in the front rows - blur the lines between audience and bar "patrons." I was half tempted to step up and order a drink myself.

This play is challenging from a viewer's perspective given its large cast (26 roles played by 23 people) and intertwining story lines. It takes a while to get all the characters straight. When considered in the context of its 1939 first performance, it is not difficult to understand the mixed critical reviews it received. In modern times we would refer to this as a "period piece," but at its original debut, the social commentary was bound to have rubbed some critics the wrong way. Still, it is an entertaining and uproariously funny social commentary with many endearing characters that are given true depth and warmth thanks to fine casting and performances.

The Time of Your Life represents a full swing of the pendulum for Karen Paisley who last directed the MET's season-opening Seascape featuring only four actors. The austerity of Seascape may have presented minimalist challenges whereas this new play challenges with a relative mob of characters, multiple entrances and exits, and complex costuming logistics for four double-characters (Streetwalker/Nick's Ma, Sailor/Cop, Lorene/Society Lady and Drunk/Cop).

The setting is as familiar as anything in modern day: it is a bar (lovingly and sarcastically referred to by its owner Nick, as a "Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace") where regulars and passers-through interact. "Nick's" may not be "Cheers" - not everybody knows your name and they definitely aren't always glad you came - but it nonetheless offers up an oasis from the stresses of everyday life on the street.

It is hard to describe the story in terms of a plot. In the end, except for a few characters, nothing much has happened and not much has changed. The play, rather, is a collection of vignettes that are interwoven in such a way as to draw unrelated characters together in a collective effect.  In The Time of Your Life there are two, predominant story lines around which all characters orbit. There is, in fact, a unique "planetary" arrangement to the settings: while the activity, in general, orbits around Nick's saloon, the drama gravitates towards Joe"played spectacularly by Robert Gibby Brand and, to a much lesser degree, around Dudley, played with grand comedic timing by Doogin Brown. Around Joe orbits the budding love story between Tom, played superbly by Kyle L. Mowry, and Kitty Duval, played by Katie Gilchrist.

Joe is an enigmatic character: wealthy enough to never have to work again - although the how and why despite several other characters' attempts to discern the information, remains a mystery to the end. By the time of the play, set in the short span of "the afternoon and night of a day in October 1939," Joe is contented to spend his days at Nick's, although clearly wealthy enough to afford higher-class establishments. He uses Tom to run a variety of inane errands for him, some practical and others purely for his amusement. Enter Kitty - a maybe-one-time burlesque star and current prostitute - and Tom falls for her so hard there is a nearly audible thud.

Kyle L. Mowry delivers Tom - who is not the sharpest crayon in the tool shed - with the gentle giant grace akin to Steinbeck's Lenny, while Katie Gilchrist's Kitty brings a vulnerable innocence that instantly completes Mowry's character. Joe, seeing that Tom is a goner, spends the rest of the play manipulating (monetarily and with sage wisdom) the relationship to ensure that the two end up together. In the process, one gets the sense that Joe's "back story" is filled with distanced interactions manipulated for his own ego and amusement with the exception of Tom and Kitty, for whom he has a genuine and selfless affection.

The play -generally funny, anyway - adds pointed comic interjections  from Doogin Brown's Dudley and Allan Boardman's Kit Carson, the former delivering several phone call scenes that highlight Brown's excellent comedic timing and facial expressions; and the latter having Boardman deliver splendid non sequiturs including random musings about falling in love with a 39-pound midget. The audience was invariably in stitches - and these were not polite 'theatre giggles,' but rather unrestrained belly laughs.

Space makes it difficult to cover this large a cast in as much detail as may be warranted, but the standouts include Scott Cordes' Nick, and the aforementioned roles of Brand, Brown, Gilchrist and Mowry. No one in the room, however - audience or cast-member - could resist the urge to fixate on Robert Gibby Brand's spellbinding performance as Joe, played with almost purposefully annoying aloofness that was paradoxically endearing as one came to realize what a sad, lonely, yet remarkably un-bitter character he was. Brand was simply fantastic.

In lesser roles, Michael Masterson's corrupt cop, Blick was outrageously enjoyable - the kind of guy you love to hate - and, in today's vernacular, a real badass who, in the end, gets everything he deserves. Alan Tilson's Drunk, while only onstage for a few minutes, was unforgettably hilarious especially in the 2^nd half when he downs several shots and slur-toasts his way through everything from sick children to reforestation. Ari Bavel's McCarthy deserves honorable mention for solid delivery and fine comedic wit. Singularly disappointing was Ethan Miller's Harry who came across as either woefully miscast, poorly performed, or both, and despite several days of pondering I am still unable to discern which.

Performance-wise, nothing speaks better to the success of Paisley's production than an overheard comment from a patron after the show:  "I really cared about these people." And in the presentation and delivery of characters in such an intimate setting , what better validation could one ask for?

Set and Lighting Design were apropos - there was a distinct 'bar' ambiance to the experience - and while some of the costuming seemed a bit mismatched (Kevin Fewell's cop character, Krupp, had his Garanimals tags in disarray) the collective effect was a very believable 1939 watering hole complete with its schizophrenic jumble of regulars and wayfarers that make such establishments, now and 70 years ago, so much fun to be around.

REVIEW:
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
The Time of Your Life
by William Saroyan
Directed by Karen Paisley
Runs November 19 - December 6 (Reviewed Friday, November 20, 2009)
MET Space
3614 Main Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-569-3226 or online at http://www.metkc.org  

Top photo: Scott Cordes as Nick.

By Christopher Guerin

Traditional and New Classical music, and Theatre Contributor (Past writer)
Christopher Guerin holds degrees in Music Education, Music Business, and Music Theory & Composition, the latter from the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) College of Music where he co-founded the college's Composers' Guild, and, in 1985, won the Artin Arslanian Composition Award. During college, he also obtained some musical theatre experience as a member of pit orchestras for Threepenny Opera and My Fair Lady. Since 1989, Christopher has been in the very non-artistic corporate sector, where his creative energies have been put to more mundane endeavors 

Christopher credits his musical motivations to his late father, who was concertmaster of the Springfield (MA) Community (pre-cursor to the city's current Symphony) Orchestra and performed popular music on radio in the 1930s. Christopher began his classical training in 1972 at age 10, began teaching at 16 (continuing to take private students throughout college), and traveled extensively with a youth orchestra - including to New Zealand in 1980. After college, and until 1989, Christopher focused on the business end of music as a successful sales manager for one of New England's largest music chains.

Over the past 20 years, Christopher's expertise has focused on medicine as a life risk underwriting officer for a large Midwest insurance group. His past duties included responsibility for risk underwriting in Pacific Rim markets where he traveled extensively to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and Burma. Time permitting, he has continued to compose intermittently throughout this period. Christopher is married to Paula, a fellow musician he met during college, and together they have "composed" their magnum opera in three very creative children - an architecture student (go K-State!), an aspiring classical pianist, and a budding writer/journalist. He and his wife relocated from Massachusetts to the Kansas City area in 1997.