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'Forever Plaid' is pure entertainment
(by Herb Hammer - April 21, 2010)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
'Forever Plaid' is pure entertainment
To find Chagrin Valley Little Theatre finally getting around to doing "Forever Plaid" is a joy. While the show joins the great and not-so-great songs of the '50s, it can't be beat for pure entertainment.
Though "Forever Plaid" starts out to be a musical review of the four-part harmonizers who made a big but rather short splash on the pop musical scene some 60 years ago, it becomes as much a comedy as it is two hours of sweet songs sung in four-part harmony.
Pamela LaForce directs and does pleasing work, but it's the four young singers who win your heart.
Many of us weren't around when the Four Aces, the Four Lads, the Four Coins and the Four Freshmen first came on the scene, but the way the four performers sing them here is a rare treat.
There's a thin story line running through the two-hour show, enough of one to give the four young men a reason for showing up. Though there have been some changes since the show first opened 20 years ago, the plot goes something like this: On their way to their very first gig, the Plaids, as they called themselves, were struck by a bus full of nuns, killing the entire group. The nuns apparently were uninjured.
Here we are decades later, and the Plaids, through some spiritual leap, suddenly arrive on the stage to give the one performance they were cheated out of so long ago.
Dressed in white dinner jackets that look more like ill-fitting, overworked busboy outfits, Chad Duwe, Trey Gilpin, Brandon Hood and Steven R. Tiderman, as the Plaids, realize they've been given one more chance. And they do make the best of it.
Their harmonies are pure, much like the originals. Two of the songs in the show, "Three Coins in the Fountain" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing," were Academy Award winners. The young men appear and sound as though they are singing their hearts out.
"Shangri La" is another that causes tingling. But much is done in comic fashion. "Lady of Spain" is uproarious good fun, as is "Matilda," the Harry Belafonte tune.
Much of the show has our four young men making fun of everything, including a severe nose bleed.
"Perfidia," a Four Aces hit, and "No Not Much," once introduced by the Four Lads, might be less welcome this time around. However, all are performed in good fun. Slip in a little Perry Como and "Sixteen Tons," and you've got a show.
Those who remember the piano version of "Heart and Soul" will love the treatment the old song gets here.
"Forever Plaid" is the brainchild of Stuart Ross and James Raitt. At times their show has appeared in as many as 30 theaters around the country at once. But you won't find a better production or four better singers-comics than here at CVLT.
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