THEATER REVIEW : ‘QUILTERS’ FALLS APART AT THE SEAMS

A new $8.3-million, two-theater complex, a street-to-chic success story, a house full of glittering, $250-a-seat patrons guzzling free champagne--expectation was understandably high for San Diego Repertory Theatre’s nine-months-overdue opening of the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza.

For producing director Sam Woodhouse, the miracle was simply standing at a lectern and thanking his audience for giving him a “new palace to make magic in”--a former street theater artist tuxing it out with the wealthy and powerful after 10 short years of building his company.

If staging “Quilters” to inaugurate the 564-seat Lyceum Stage took second place in his heart, well, the man has been very busy.

At its best, the Molly Newman-Barbara Damashek musical is moderately entertaining, a clever vehicle for praising the trials and strengths of America’s pioneer women. But the Rep’s version does not achieve the standards demanded by the company’s expensive new home.

Actresses Angela Paton, Karen Allie, Darla Cash, Kathie Danger, Denise DeMirjian, Kate Frank, Jenifer Parker and the five-member musical ensemble aren’t the problem. Their talents shine through the haze of Woodhouse’s careless direction.

“Quilters” was born when actress Molly Newman was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company to expand an audition piece into a full-length work. She and songwriter Damashek built their story around Sarah, whose creation of a “legacy quilt” for her six grown daughters provides a metaphor to move the exposition through scenes and songs celebrating the spirit of pioneer women.

The action wanders from wagon trains to dugout homesteads, from childhood through childbearing to old age, each scene a “square” in Sarah’s quilt. Quilting, we learn, is about saving scraps of memory-fabric and piecing them together into an artful, useful, self-satisfying whole. “Quilters” echoes this structure, building a scrap-bag drama that fails to ignite the respect deserved by the real women who traveled westward.

Sarah, likably portrayed by Paton (except when she sings), is the only identifiable character. The others move in and out of locales, accents and personalities before we get to know them. Their lines are directed outward, Greek chorus style, which may have misled scenic designer Don Childs into creating the ugly bronze-colored stack of bare platforms that provides a pseudo-classical playing area.

But “Quilters” will never be “The Trojan Women.” By the time it ends, after much hokey stage business with long strips of shiny modern fabrics never found on the Western plains, only one “character” remains in mind: the hammered-in image of a strong woman who averaged 15 children, suffered hard work and fearful concepts of life and death, and found relief from every tribulation by making neat, invisible stitches on hundreds of lovingly created quilts.

For all her inner strength, this homogenized stereotype is too frail to carry an entire musical.

Choreographer Patrick Nollet’s simple dances give the piece a little lift, and musical director Linda Vickerman does fine work blending the women’s voices.

The costumed musicians, visible on a suspended platform, give this production its magic. Sweet flute solos, wind whistles, fiddle, bass and accordion lend prestige to the new theater’s acoustics. The displaced sound effects are a little harder to accept, particularly Woodhouse’s penchant for loud drum bangs.

Lighting designer Rob Murphy needs lots more practice with the new equipment to avoid highlighting the backstage area and flattening faces in harsh white spots.

The seating is comfortable in the dull beige theater, with acceptable sightlines, but the last two rows of the roomy house are forced to gaze through and under a low-hanging lighting grid, a constant reminder of the theater’s claustrophobic, underground location.

Shaky technical handling is certainly forgivable for this deadline-pressured opening, but careless directing that underuses the available talent is not. Loud Velcro rips (the acoustics really are terrific) on fabric drapings and pioneer costumes designed by Mary Gibson, a trap door left gaping, bright white ropes with shiny modern hooks dropped awkwardly to fly the finale quilt, a pre-wrapped baby emerging from under a woman’s skirt in full audience view--the list of sloppy work is long. Even the quilts designed by Childs seem to lack the color and life the musical attempts to capture.

With nothing original or daring added, “Quilters” was an unfortunate choice for such an important, expensively underwritten, highly touted moment in San Diego’s theatrical history.

“QUILTERS”

By Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek. Music and lyrics by Damashek. Based on “The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art” by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen. Directed by Sam Woodhouse. Musical direction by Linda Vickerman. Choreography by Patrick Nollet, scenic and quilt design by Don Childs. Costumes by Mary Gibson. Lighting design by Rob Murphy. Sound design by Victor P. Zupanc. With Angela Paton, Karen Allie, Darla Cash, Kathie Danger, Denise DeMirjian, Kate Frank, Jenifer Parker. Musicians: Donna Isaac, Cynthia Merrill, Jonathan Parker, David Robinson, Richard Tibbitts. Variable schedule through June 29 at the Lyceum Stage, Horton Plaza. Produced by the San Diego Repertory Theatre.