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Featherbrain in a garbage house

THEATER REVIEW: Old Log revives the sweet, nostalgic comedy 'Everybody Loves Opal,' with Peggy O'Connell in the wacky title role.

For the Minnesota Star Tribune
October 7, 2011 at 2:16PM

It has been nearly 50 years since Old Log Theater last produced John Patrick's "Everybody Loves Opal." (They produced it twice during the 1960s.) According to owner Don Stolz, they were waiting for the right actor to revive it. In Peggy O'Connell, they found the perfect embodiment of this sweet and silly nostalgic comedy.

Opal is a wacky innocent. She lives in a broken-down house in the middle of a garbage dump, subsisting on "congenital optimism" and what she can collect. Three inept crooks try to kill her for her insurance, but goodness proves much too resilient.

The naive script is reflective of its time, and O'Connell makes its virtues shine. Opal is a Gracie Allen-esque featherbrain, and her silly stream-of-consciousness ramblings are the show's highlight. For the character to work, the audience has to believe that Opal believes her own twisted musings, and O'Connell is utterly convincing.

Jon C. Stolz's set is the show's second-funniest character. It is a hoarder's paradise, crammed with the oddest assortment of odds and ends, including a clothesline hung with drying tea bags. It is an ideal manifestation of Opal's reality.

O'Connell is the whole show. When she's not onstage, the production tends to drag. I chuckled rather than guffawed. That's in large part a function of the script's style of gentle, whimsical comedy.

As a director, Tom Stolz maintains too leisurely a pace. The production could have used more of Opal's fizz and pizzazz and O'Connell's energy. He was clearly intent on honoring the play, a noble motive, but a little more creative irreverence would have been welcomed.

At the same time, Stolz delivers one of his most restrained and nuanced performances, as a slimy, erudite professor bent on murder. He has rarely had an opportunity to be so smarmy and mean -- and he carries it off well.

As his two cohorts, Steve Shaffer plays the kind of lug that has been his raison d'être for years. And Judith Heneghan brings just the right degree of warmth and humanity to the role of a brash dame.

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The riotous final scene ends on a note of sweet sentimentality. Its unbridled optimism truly makes it feel of a bygone era. More's the pity.

about the writer

about the writer

WILLIAM RANDALL BEARD

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