Riverside ‘Cocoanuts’ Hits the Marks

The difficulty in staging a Marx Brothers vehicle these days is, of course, that it’s awfully hard to lure those boys out of retirement.

So you try to find actors who can deliver convincing impersonations of Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. It’s a tall order, but for his production of “The Cocoanuts” in Riverside, director William Freimuth not only comes up with the goods in these roles, but he and his mostly young, mostly nonprofessional cast pull off an altogether classy, polished staging of a difficult musical.

“The Cocoanuts” was the second Broadway show to star the Marx Brothers as they moved beyond vaudeville. The 1925 show featured a script by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, and a score by Irving Berlin--but, of course, the Marxes made hash of it as they improvised new gags or playfully attempted to throw one another off balance.

One of this 1988 adaptation’s most welcome achievements (in addition to restoring the beloved Berlin tune “Always”) is that it fleshes out the barely there story that ended up being preserved in the brothers’ first movie, in 1929.

Set during the 1920s real-estate boom in Florida, “The Cocoanuts” centers on activity at a beach hotel that hasn’t caught on, in an area that remains largely undeveloped. Groucho’s character is the money-lusting proprietor; Chico and Harpo are small-time thieves determined to steal the dollar signs right out of his eyes. Subplots involve a wealthy guest, her daughter and the daughter’s penniless beau (Pauline Charles, Melissa Lyons and Robert Allen) and a shady pair eyeing the rich guest’s diamond necklace (Barbara Passolt and Mark Everett).

Affecting a dead-on imitation of Groucho’s nasal-pitched vocal assault, Scott K. Ratner fires off puns faster than ears can decipher them. Fred Vindiola wonderfully mimics Chico’s mangled-English wordplay, and Jeff Wilson is a capable clown as Harpo.

In the Zeppo role of an amiable hotel clerk, 18-year-old, 6-foot-7 1/2-inch Dustin Ceithamer kicks his long legs impossibly high (watch out, Tommy Tune) as he leads the chorus of bellboys and girls through a rousing tap routine.

The choral singing is weak; the miking is unpredictable; and the pacing ever so occasionally flags. But director Freimuth--who until last year was executive director of the producers’ alliance Theatre LA--obviously spent a lot of time perfecting the comic routines, which are played almost exactly as in the film, and Rikki Lugo did the same with her high-energy dances, which gambol with the bent wrists and double-jointed legs of the Jazz Age.

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* “The Cocoanuts,” Performance Riverside at Landis Auditorium, Riverside Community College, 4800 Magnolia Blvd., Riverside. Tonight at 8; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Oct. 8-9, 8 p.m.; Oct. 10, 2 p.m. Ends Oct. 10. $17-$25. (909) 222-8100. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.