Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Making musicals based on the life's work of a musician or band is the new black, and here is the entry for the great Neil Sedaka. In his prolific (and ongoing) career, Sedaka has written approximately four hundred million songs, so the catalog from which Breaking Up Is Hard to Do is assembled makes for an impressive and instantly recognizable score. On the script side (concept by Marsh Hanson and Gordon Greenberg; book by Erik Jackson and Ben H. Winters), the play has in its favor a show-within-a-show framework that opens up song possibilities as well as a kicky premise that practically owes royalties to Dirty Dancing.

To be clear, this musical is more Mamma Mia! than Spring Awakening; there is not a single element as untoward as much of the plot of the above-mentioned Patrick Swayze film. Yet the parallels are myriad, most notably the Catskills resort setting, guests fraternizing with employees and becoming part of the floor show, and a hunky headliner whose attractiveness nearly demands its own byline. The story is peripheral: a jilted fiancée and her friend turn her honeymoon that wasn't into a girl's weekend at Esther's Paradise, and a bit of cunning lands them roles as backup singers for the house entertainment, upon which the resort's future hopes seem to rest. Given a cast of three men and three women, the viewer can gather sufficient evidence within ten minutes to solve that particular math problem. A limp, tacked-on conflict leads to a resolution that defies adjectives in its immense lack of importance. But no matter — happily, this Meadow Brook Theatre production, directed by Travis W. Walter, gamely shoves the story to the wayside in favor of stronger focal points like singing, dancing, comedy, and light 1960s camp.

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Enchanted April

Meadow Brook Theatre's Enchanted April requires some clarification: the word enchantment can refer to magic, but also describes the human quality of charm. In fact, the mystical enchantment touched on in Matthew Barber's script (based on the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim) turns out to look suspiciously like the real-life magic of a good vacation. The most supernatural effect of the production is that of scenic designer Kristen Gribbin and the stage crew, who deserve accolades for the transition from an intentionally drab, close London interior to the lush, spacious Italian seaside.

The plot is easily distilled: In 1922, four English women are in need of a change, go on holiday, and feel better for it. Vacations are great; this is not new. (It wasn't new in 1922, for that matter.) What makes this show endearing is its funny, warm, revealing, touching interactions. There is relatively little serious conflict; among a group of fundamentally likable characters, it's not surprising that they would all basically like each other. Even in troubling moments, the play's more than two hours are kept moving by the promise of impending pleasantness — and it abounds.

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Mindgame

The house lights came up; the plunking marimba sounds of Mike Duncan's movie-score music returned. It was intermission at Meadow Brook Theatre, and I was thoroughly spooked.

It doesn't take much time to start wondering what's really going on in Mindgame, the Anthony Horowitz play in its Michigan premiere. Major and minor clues are peppered through the first act, eventually leading one to realize that something is amiss. Writer Mark Styler (Loren Bass) has made the trip to secluded Fairfield, an asylum for the criminally insane, in order to unlock the secrets of the serial killer Easterman for his next lucrative true-crime book. Instead, he's stymied by Dr. Alex Farquhar (Mark Rademacher), who denies Mark access to the patients but keeps him talking, and Nurse Plimpton (Inga R. Wilson), who's both terrified and brusquely insistent that he depart. What begins as a long, indulgent talk between Mark and Dr. Farquhar is in fact laying out the complex groundwork for a reality in which nothing is as it appears. Once the story gets moving, it veers out of control, and — Here's the thing about reviewing a play in which unexpected things happen: you can't talk about anything for fear of spoilers. This one is best kept vague.

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Boeing-Boeing

The farcical Boeing-Boeing doesn't deceive its audience: it carefully sets up the premise and makes it clear from the beginning exactly how it will go wrong. (If asked what happens when more than one of your fiancées is in Paris at the same time, answering "Impossible!" means you [a] brought it on yourself and [b] deserve what's coming.) But in between director Travis W. Walter's air travel–inspired curtain speech and the tightly choreographed curtain call, this crisp Meadow Brook Theatre production proves that getting there is all the fun.

Marc Camoletti's play, adapted from the original French by Beverly Cross, is firmly set in the 1960s, most notably the "air hostesses" dressed like Stewardess Barbie (fine work from costume designer Liz Moore). Yet Katie Hardy's, Julianne Somers's, and Stephanie Wahl's flight attendants are far from interchangeable; instead, they're distinctly interesting, and not one is ever vacant or stupid. The women hail from different countries, have different employers, and are blissfully unaware of each other and the fact that they are all three engaged to Bernard (Christopher Howe). The audience is in on the joke, but waiting to learn when and how and whether they discover his secret — in the midst of constant near-misses and exits and entrances reminiscent of Noël Coward — adds palpable tension to this riotously funny caper.

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