Praise and Play Rights : Publishing Offers Follow Honors for Cal State Fullerton’s ‘Manager’ and ‘All That He Was’

When Darrin Shaughnessy is listed in the next Samuel French Inc. catalogue for the publication of his prize-winning comedy, “The Manager,” his name will appear between William Shakespeare’s and George Bernard Shaw’s.

“We welcome him to the ranks of his peers,” Bill Talbot, representing the nation’s preeminent drama publisher, said in a ceremony following the performance of Shaughnessy’s play Tuesday at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

To be included in such august company is a tad heady, even for an author with a fine sense of humor and a flair for snappy dialogue. The former Cal State Fullerton graduate student never would have thought to enter their ranks, let alone with his first produced work.

The same holds true for writer-lyricist Larry Johnson and composer Cindy O’Connor, both of whom got Talbot’s royal treatment Monday following the first of two performances of their prize-winning musical, “All That He Was.”

Johnson’s name would be listed in the catalogue of the 163-year-old publishing company right before Franz Kafka’s, Talbot said. O’Connor’s would come right after Sean O’Casey’s.

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The gracious conflation of alphabetical order with literary value was delivered with a clubman’s quiet sense of exaggeration that didn’t fool anyone, of course. But it did have the effect of a lovely conceit: Everyone, authors and audiences alike, more or less swooned with pleasure.

As two of the theater festival’s top prize-winners--”The Manager” won the National Short Play Award, and “All That He Was” won the National Playwriting Award--both works came to Kennedy Center heaped with honors. But the offer of a publisher’s contract was the sort of professional validation that seemed to be the raison d’etre of the entire festival.

The scores of performers who have come here to be seen by assorted casting directors, talent scouts, drama coaches, producers and other industry types yearn almost beyond measure for the attention of the powers-that-be.

It is unlikely, however, that any cast under the watchful eye of a Shakespeare or a Shaw ever had to perform for an audience at 9:30 in the morning, as the cast of “The Manager” had to do in this festival. (Center officials couldn’t find a better time slot during the nine-day event, which ends Monday.)

Contrary to Shaughnessy’s fears, though, the ungodly theatrical hour didn’t appear to hurt attendance, and it definitely didn’t harm the performance of the CSUF players. A crowd of about 375 people not only turned up at the center’s rooftop Terrace Theater to see the show, but they also laughed easily and often.

“It’s funny ,” said William Kilroy, a member of the drama faculty at the University of Southern Maine. From the pleased look on his face, Kilroy appeared a little amazed and entirely grateful to start the day watching a 55-minute comedy about short-circuited relationships set in a run-down New Mexico apartment house.

Thanks to four buoyant actors--led by Jim Gray as a young writer nimbly trying to avoid the blowzy advances of Samantha Hadfield, playing the apartment manager’s neglected housewife--the production did justice to a very breezy script and kept it honest.

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While it must be said that “The Manager” treats its characters once over lightly, much like a television sitcom, it doesn’t condescend to them. The cast can take partial credit for that, too, as can CSUF professor Joe Arnold, who directed.

Gray invested his role with unaffected charm, to say nothing of adroit timing that you either have or you don’t. He does.

Hadfield, prowling for a party late on a Saturday night, is supposed to be so drunk she spends a lot of time offstage throwing up in a bathroom. Wisely, Hadfield avoided reeling and underplayed the character without seeming at all sketchy.

Meanwhile, Lisa Wilson lent her considerable beauty and sincerity to the role of the writer’s girlfriend, who also feels neglected. And Jeff Swarthout added color and depth to the performance when he came on midway through the play as the macho apartment manager who turns out to be nursing secret feelings of low self-esteem.

Physically, Todd Muffatti’s production design looked like a million garage-sale bucks. A ramshackle apartment, scattered with newspapers, is set against the red-brick facade of an apartment house. The apartment itself is framed one side by a thick tree trunk with a sawed-off limb and on the other by a white-curtained window.

Although lacking huge ambition, “The Manager” has the large virtue of being playable throughout. It ought to provide the grist for many small theatrical mills. It might even become the source of a television pilot, if Shaughnessy were to exploit his aptitude for the common touch.

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“All That He Was” is quite a different animal. It tends to reach for the meaning of life. In a two-hour display of naked emotion, it gathered power through the force of its material, semi-realistic format, stripped-down design and presentational style of performance. A musical “Our Town” for the ‘90s, it has gay- and AIDS-themed ambitions writ large.

As the festival’s first production Monday night, it opened at Kennedy Center’s rooftop Theater Lab to lots of fanfare and high expectations.

Unfortunately, the 12-person cast seemed jet-lagged. The performance was raggedly uneven and missed the delicate subtleties, though not the broad strokes, of the pre-festival brush-up a couple of weeks ago in CSUF’s Arena Theatre.

Other things also conspired to diminish the production. The 340-seat, bleacher-styled Lab is larger and wider than the tiny Arena, and it has utterly dead acoustics.

Director James Taulli had blocked the show for a three-quarter-round space, as at the Arena. He’d been told the Lab layout was similarly shaped. He’d been told wrong. The Lab is set up much more like a broad, flat proscenium space, which meant the audience saw the backs of a few too many performers.

Small visual details that worked beautifully in the CSUF space could hardly be noticed. Further, one of the show’s sterling virtues--unmiked voices--ended up working to its disadvantage. Many voices simply didn’t carry. And when they did, they were often swallowed by a prerecorded soundtrack of the score that apparently couldn’t be played at a lower volume.

The lighting didn’t help. When players moved across the stage, they passed through unintended shadows. If they happened to land in a spot just where their faces were obscured, you couldn’t help trying to urge them into the light by the power of thought. It was that kind of evening.

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Nevertheless, an audience would have to be made of stone not to be affected even by a diminished production of this show, which comes from the heart and the heartland. As the gay, central figure with AIDS, Man (Gray again), says near the top of almost two intermission-less hours: “I was 29 years old, and I lived right in your hometown.”

For all its shortcomings, the production struck a chord in the Kennedy Center audience. You could see lots of furtive tear-wiping on opening night. You could hear the sniffles.

“I thought it was wonderful,” said Ray Frank, an insurance agent who had come with a date, Sadie Edwards. “It was important. Everybody does know somebody (gay). I was moved.”

Others agreed unreservedly, echoing the same words--”I was moved”--over and over.

Some loved it with reservations, such as James Ivy, a member of the drama faculty at Hardin-Simmons University in Denton, Tex. “I thought it had terrific moments.”

Charles Harrill, on the drama faculty of Texas Woman’s University in Denton, said he enjoyed himself but felt the script needed some fixing.

“It had more than one denouement,” he said. “It wrapped up several times. It’s a wonderful young piece, even though it’s still not finished. There’s more there than they need.”

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“All That He Was” does seem to end two or three times, especially in a dramatically visual tableau of the entire cast with their heads bowed, before it actually concludes.

But the basic ingenuity of this show shouldn’t be touched. It has a kaleidoscopic field of vision. The story of the Man takes its shape from all the characters around him. Similarly named archetypes, such as Mother, Father, Brother, Lover, Girlfriend and so on, draw our interest as much as he does because they are kindled with wit (“You need some exposition: My life, a melodrama in six minutes and 42 seconds”) as well as sentiment.

The story is propelled by song, moreover, suggesting a pop-opera. It melds a score flavored by melodies reminiscent of early Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics influenced by Stephen Sondheim. This musical pastiche is also highlighted by striking duets and trios that give well-defined outlines to the characters.

They bring out the common anguish of Mother (Paris Bradstreet), Brother (Jared Pfeifer) and Sister (Kari Hayter), as in “No More Crying.” They underscore strong contrasts, such as the desperate cynicism of Friend (Rafael Duran) and the spiritual bonds felt by Lover (Brad Hoffner), as in “Candlelight.”

And they serve comically, as in the duet between Sister, a Bible-quoting fundamentalist, and the lesbian Activist (Dyan McBride). This pair’s entertaining ideological battle is told through “Save the World.”

Similarly, a trio of white-coated Doctors who also double as Teachers (Rachel Hand, Edgar Schulz and Jim Finnerty) share light notes in “Things Are Looking . . . “ and “Now You Know the Story.”

Other bright moments included:

* Man’s song “I Want One Day,” though Gray’s voice sounded frazzled;

* The well-turned combination of lyrics and melody in “Somewhere Between,” which was delivered rather too faintly by Pfeifer, a promising Orange County high school student;

* The pertness of “I Won’t Cry,” sung by Girlfriend (Dana Meller, in the show’s outstanding performance this time around);

* And the two main anthems, “All That He Was” and “We Need Each Other Now,” performed by various members of the company.

Brad Symons, playing Father, rounded out the company.

“The Manager,” a play by Darrin Shaughnessy, was presented Tuesday at Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. Directed by Joe Arnold. Original workshop staging by Tom Sunstrom. Stage manager: Nicole S.E. West. “All That He Was,” a musical by Larry Johnson (book and lyrics) and Cindy O’Connor (score), was presented Monday and Tuesday at Kennedy Center’s Theater Lab. Directed by James Taulli. Scenic design by E. Junior Usaraga. Lighting by Lisa Cindrich. Costumes and makeup by Karen Wight. Sound design by John R. Fisher. Stage manager: John Vasquez.