‘Moon’ Light

The backstage farce “Moon Over Buffalo,” now playing at the Santa Paula Theater Center, includes--thanks as much to Jeff Rack’s elaborate stage set as to Ken Ludwig’s script--plenty of doors to slam as characters dash in and out while complications, misunderstandings and mistaken identity pile up.

Frederick Helsel’s direction packs more wisecracking and action into less than two hours than most regulation-length comedies do in half an hour more.

Set in the early 1950s, the play finds a fading theatrical couple valiantly trying to sustain a touring company, which is performing “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” in repertoire. Most of the cast members, not having been paid in weeks, has disappeared, and tragedy seems to be on the horizon--until the phone rings, bringing news that not all hope is lost. If only the bickering couple can keep it together.

The cast includes Ronald Rezac and Marilyn Foote as the minor-league Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (allowing Rezac a rare and welcome opportunity to play a comic role); Betty Taffert as the Foote character’s cynical and hard-of-hearing mother; John Masterson as the couple’s attorney; Kathryn Dippong-Lawson as their strait-laced daughter, Rosalind; John Reinhart and Gina Lopez as two remaining cast members (she’s carrying on an affair with Rezac’s character); and, in a welcome return to local theater after a two-year absence, James Leslie as Rosalind’s befuddled fiance.

DETAILS

“Moon Over Buffalo” continues through Aug. 29 at the Santa Paula Theater Center, 125 S. 7th St. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Tickets to all shows are $12.50, adults; $10, seniors and students; and $6, ages 12 and under. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. For reservations or more information, call 525-4645. On Sept. 10, the production moves to the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center for a four-week run. Call 581-9940 for more information.

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The second annual Ojai Playwrights Conference was “wildly successful,” said co-producing director Kim Maxwell-Brown after its conclusion last week. Although all five plays and their authors were virtually unknown to general audiences and were presented in readings rather than full productions, all five performances at Happy Valley School were essentially sold out.

“There were a lot of people (in the audience) from L.A.” Maxwell-Brown noted, “many from Ojai and Ventura, and we’re developing a bit of a constituency from Santa Barbara.”

Playwrights, actors and directors assembled early in the week from as far away as New York City and Washington, D.C., to work on the plays. Some scripts were already finished; at least one playwright, Neena Beber, was rewriting 20 minutes before a Sunday-afternoon performance.

“It was extraordinary,” said artistic director Chris Fields. “When we initially screened Neena’s script, it was 74 pages. When we did it, it was more than 140. That’s what playwrights’ conferences are for.”

“I thought the conference was well-produced,” said playwright John Quincy Long, whose comedy “Year of the Baby” was a highlight of the weekend. “And the writing and actors were quite good.”

Long saw all the plays, he said, but during a Saturday-afternoon children’s event he took advantage of one of Ojai’s attractions for big-city theater folk. “I wanted to see some of the country, so I took a hike,” he said.

Fields and Maxwell-Brown said next year’s conference is already being planned, with some changes in mind. It’s hoped, said Fields, that every play will have at least four days’ rehearsal, and one of next year’s productions probably will be selected from a competition among college-age playwrights.

Said Anne Kerry Ford, an Ojai resident who acted in plays both years: “I feel it’s so vital for the future of the theater for playwrights to see their work performed before people in a safe arena without spending the money on a full production. Whether they go on to Broadway or have productions in other places, these are our generation of Arthur Millers or Tennessee Williamses.”

Todd Everett can be reached at teverett@concentric.net.