O.C. STAGE REVIEW : ‘Drood’: A Wink at an Undemanding Audience

When Rupert Holmes wrote the music, lyrics and book for “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” you know he had the community theater circuit in mind, where audiences aren’t at their most particular and the actors can do a stretch without having to do Shakespeare.

The one caveat is that the theater has to cast good singers: some of Holmes’ better songs simply will not do with any less.

Holmes, in other words, had in mind something like Jody Johnston Davidson’s production at the Laguna Playhouse.

At the California Music Theatre last year, the show was simply “Drood,” but under any title Holmes’ gimmick is the same.

London’s Music Hall Royale of 1892 is presenting for our pleasure a musicalization of Charles Dickens’ incomplete novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” with an ending that’s partly supplied by the audience: We get to vote on poor Edwin’s killer.

The gimmicks go down better in this easy-to-swallow form than in Holmes’ recent bag of plot contortions, “Accomplice.” The music hall tradition is little more than theatrical tomfoolery, always played out with a huge wink and a nod to the crowd, charmingly bulldogged on by the Chairman.

The California Music Theatre had Mr. Chairman himself, the late George Rose. Here, Michael C. Miller’s Chairman stands up fairly well, although we could do with some more dogging.

And so it is with Davidson’s show. The feeling is of a very good facsimile of the old music hall, which never completely transports us.

It isn’t because of the simple technical errors, like an errant curtain or a set piece that doesn’t completely cooperate--that only adds to a music hall’s rough-and-ready nature which, again, makes “Edwin Drood” a comfortable fit for a non-professional theater.

It’s because of high-tech non-necessities, such as the jarring synthesizer in conductor Joseph Mulroy’s nice little orchestra (which already includes a piano) and tinny miking in what’s a very intimate house (Stephen Shaffer did the sound).

On the other hand, some actors hold up better than others.

William Sandidge seems dazed as the Reverend, and the mugging of Mark Perkins as the villain Jasper and of Eric Anderson as a Ceylonese incongruously named Neville Landless are excessive even by music hall standards.

They don’t take us out of Laguna.

Diane Freiman’s beautifully sung Rosa Bud, Katy Henk’s spunky turn on Edwin and Norma Stone’s jaunty Princess Puffer absolutely do. With them, the audience needed no prodding in their reactions from Lyndie Robbins as Miss Violet Throttle, the Stage Manager.

They also seemed to love the combination of Kathy Pryzgoda’s lights and Ellis Pryce-Jones’ quaint set pieces that look almost homemade. With the right play, a bigger budget is not necessarily better.

At 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2:30 p.m., and Monday, Oct. 16, at 8 p.m.. Through Oct. 17. Tickets: $15 to $17. Information: (714) 94-8021.