theatrevault.com

by Krista Threadgill

Weathervane Playhouse opened its latest summer stock show, Cheaper by the Dozen, this past Thursday.  Based on the book by sibling team Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Christopher Sergel’s dramatization gives the audience a glimpse into the lives of a family with twelve children in the fall of 1923 as remembered nearly twenty years later by the eldest son and second-eldest daughter.  The un-air-conditioned space did become a little stuffy, but a cold bottle of water and a paper fan were all I needed to transport me to a time of bobbed hair and be-bop.

Set in the living room of the Gilbreth household,  Timothy Spencer’s design comes complete with a staircase and parlor.  Spencer’s scenic design perfectly captures the main living quarters of a family headed by an efficiency expert who specializes in “motion theory.”  Mr. Gilbreth (Kirk Paisley) runs his family like a factory, often mentioning that there’s no difference in running a household.  Mrs. Gilbreth (Katherine DeBoer) cheerfully encourages the children to give their father’s eccentric ideas a try before dismissing them.  Meanwhile, Gilbreth’s daughters Anne (Sara Michalski), Ernestine (Erika Twinning), and Martha (Marisa Riegle) plot to overthrow some of their father’s more conservative theories, donning such risqué items in their wardrobes as silk stockings.  The older boys—Frank (Morgan McCann) and Bill (Zachary Richiemer)— look for ways to get out of doing household chores and to avoid chaperoning their sisters on dates.  Mr. Gilbreth pushes all of his children to succeed academically, but they don’t realize his true motivation until it’s almost too late.

Paisley adds a great deal of tenderness to the patriarch of the Gilbreth brood.  Many of his moments with the family are heartwarming and touching.  DeBoer’s performance is also rock solid, and her character’s composure breaks beautifully at the perfect point.  Michalski’s Anne, although eager to declare her independence from her father’s domineering rules, shows her vulnerability when considering life without her ever-present safety net.  Twinning and McCann play well off of each other, both as the older and younger versions of their characters.  Andrew Edward Thomas, Jr. (playing Anne’s beau Joe Scales) and Carolyn Clippinger (as the nasty psychologist out to debunk Gilbreth’s efficiency theories as they relate to his children’s education) delight the audience in their roles.  The young children in the cast show great promise of things yet to come as they mature and find their niche in the theatrical world.

This was my second trip out to Weathervane this month, and I’m still just as happy with this outing as I was the first.  Summer stock is always stressful to produce, but Weathervane handles the pressure with professionalism and panache.  This is truly excellent theater a little off the beaten path, and it’s worth every second of drive time.  With one more show to go for their summer season—The Secret Garden, opening at the end of July—Weathervane still has plenty of good entertainment to offer to central Ohioans through the end of the summer.

Weathervane Playhouse is presenting Cheaper by the Dozen at the Mary A. Alford Memorial Pavilion located at 100 Price Road, Newark, Ohio.  Shows start at 8:00 p.m. July 16-18 and July 22-25.  Tickets range in price from $15 to $23 and are available at the box office before the show or you can purchase them online through their website.  For more information about this show or the upcoming shows this season, please visit their website or call the box office at (740) 366-4616.

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