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Disclaimer:
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Peer Reviews I Do! I Do! By Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt Reviewed by Craig Nolan Highley Entire contents are copyright © 2009, Craig Nolan Highley. All rights reserved.
I Do! I Do! is a 1966 Broadway musical from the writing team behind The Fantasticks and is loosely based on the 1951 Jan de Hartog play The Four-Poster. The two-character story has been performed by such stellar stage couples as Mary Martin and Robert Preston, Carol Lawrence and Gordon McRae, and Carol Burnett and Rock Hudson. There was even an aborted film version in 1969 that was to star Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews, and a television version with Lee Remick and Hal Linden. I didn't get to see any of those productions, but I find it hard to believe that any of them would have compared to the As Yet Unnamed Theatre Company's current production playing at the MeX theatre at the Kentucky Center! And I don't make that statement likely, as I will explain. The play as written spans the years 1895-1945; this production moves it up twenty years to span 1915-1965, but in actuality there is very little in the script that indicates a time period. It could very easily span fifty years leading up to our present. It follows the many ups and downs in the marriage of Michael and Agnes, from their wedding day and night on through childbearing, falling out-of-and-into love again, temptations of extramarital affairs, and on to the twilight years. The script is rather predictable and sometimes a little too sweet, but really, what's wrong with a feel-good play once in a while?
According to their bios in the program, Gary Tipton and Sandy Richens Cohrs have been good friends for years, and have frequently directed each other in various productions for the AYUTC. This is the first time they have shared equally on the stage, and their friendship really creates strong chemistry. The credit for directing is conspicuously absent from the program; one can assume these two talented performers directed themselves, and it really works for such an intimate show. Tipton and Cohrs are simply excellent in the two roles, which call for a sometimes intense range of emotions and ages that they pull off expertly. The simple set is nicely executed, evoking a bedroom with a four-poster bed as its focal point, and complemented nicely by Elaine Hackett's beautiful lighting design. Accompanist Shirley Hawkes, completely visible behind a lit scrim, never misses a note (no small task for a single musician). Finally, Cohrs' choreography adds nice punctuation to the frequent musical numbers. I've stated in other reviews, and I'll say it again here: musicals very rarely work in the MeX, simply because they usually are larger than life and require more space than this intimate theatre can provide. I Do! I Do! is the exception that proves the rule, probably because it is such a small-scale show by its very nature. This is an expert production performed with talent from every department and should not be missed!
I Do! I Do! Featuring Gary Tipton and Sandy Richens Cohrs.
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