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Theater Review : Romance, Reason Lock Horns in Delightful ‘Folly’

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

In 1944, near the end of World War II, America was looking forward to building a brave new world. Few people noticed that a good chunk of the tacky old one wouldn’t go away.

Those two worlds are the roots of Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly,” at the Vanguard Theatre.

Matt Friedman, a Jewish accountant from St. Louis, wants to be part of that new world and take with him the love of his life, Sally Talley. He was on vacation the previous year when he met and dated Sally. She admits she went along because he was “exotic.” When Matt returns a year later, on the Fourth of July, he finds himself fighting her family’s prejudice, dodging her brother’s shotgun and battling Sally’s indifference.

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Matt is not a man to take no for an answer.

In the beginning, he promises the audience that he will accomplish his purpose in 97 minutes, beginning the moment Sally wanders down to the ornate Victorian gingerbread boathouse her grandfather built, dubbed by town folk as “Talley’s Folly.”

When she shows up, their conversation turns into an elaborate chess game, as ornate and riddled with linguistic gingerbread as the Folly itself. It is funny, warm, sparkling with verbal fireworks as bright as those about to go off across the lake, poetic in its insights into the underpinnings of human nature.

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Sally is as definite in her refusal to marry Matt as he is in their union’s inevitability. Jill Cary Martin’s Sally is strong, from the settler stock that built a civilization on the Western prairies.

And she’s proud, in spite of the fact that her inability to bear children destroyed her engagement to the bubba scion of the town’s other important family. Martin displays all this, along with a subtle touch of the Dixie doxy she might become if she doesn’t accept Matt. It’s an incisive and affectionate performance.

But the play always belongs to Matt, with his naive approach to romance, his wise sense of purpose and an understanding of the human comedy that balances his dark memories of a childhood and youth spent dodging the Fascist terror all across Europe.

And this production belongs to Michael Keith Allen’s portrait of Matt, alive and vital, and fully realized in every detail, from his nervous habit of hitching up his suspendered pants to his feigned clumsiness, from his indestructible optimism to his puppy-like eagerness, all encompassed by immense charm for which Sally’s denials are no match.

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Chuck Ketter’s boathouse setting fills the Vanguard’s limited space but looks grander than it is, and it is beautifully lit in Adrian Michael Dickey’s design. The actors move about it as though it really was at lake shore, and imagination fills in the hillside leading up to the Tally manor house and the smell of summer grass on a midsummer evening.

Terry Gunkel’s staging is as varied and interesting as the tones of the performances, and his direction of the emotional slips and slides between this Midwestern Kate and her funny, exotic Petruchio is flawless.

* “Talley’s Folly,” Vanguard Theatre, 669-A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 5 p.m. Ends July 30. $12-$14. (714) 526-8007. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. Michael Keith Allen: Matt Friedman

Jill Cary Martin: Sally Talley

A Vanguard Theatre Ensemble production of Lanford Wilson’s play, produced by Paulette Krutsick. Directed by Terry Gunkel. Scenic design: Chuck Ketter. Lighting design: Adrian Michael Dickey. Stage manager: Todd Crabtree.

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