Tragedy is easy, comedy is hard. The old show-biz maxim applies to the current offering by the Durango Arts Repertory Theater.
“The Notorious Nugget,” a new musical melodrama by Coloradans Mark and Lauren Arnest, spins a fantastical Western tale through a well-worn genre. To enjoy “Nugget,” get in the spirit of booing the villain, cheering the hero and sighing over young lovers.
Last weekend, DART’s bumpy production eased into a recognizable rhythm toward the end of Act I. It took a while for the actors and the audience to gel with the declamatory style, exaggerated language, well-worn clichés and formulaic plot.
The Colorado Springs playwrights have resurrected the 19th-century form with mixed results. In 1914, hero Buck Worthington (confidently played by Atlee Beam) seeks his fortune in the mining country of Colorado. He encounters Crooksdale Robberson III (the inimitable Nathan Van Arsdale), a smarmy real estate tycoon, who draws Buck into his favorite scam: salting barren mines with the notorious gold nugget of the title.
Secondary plot lines involve Robberson’s spoiled daughter Lizzie (Emma Vogel as the mercurial femme fatale), her wise maid Carlotta (a saucy Isa Rosales), Burpram Beasley (the charmingly eager Tyler Wiseman), and more characters than you can shake a shovel at.
Of course, a happy ending awaits. You merely have to adjust to melodrama hallmarks: stock characters, stylized speech, broad gestures, obvious clichés and silly, groan-worthy wordplay.
Director Monica DiBiasio has assembled a cast of seasoned players and newcomers. On July 12, the company didn’t miss a beat but also didn’t find a rhythm until late in the first act. When audience members began to boo and cheer, a theatrical partnership finally emerged. Act II steamed somewhat awkwardly with an unstated agreement that this was old-style, highly-artificial pretend.
Musical director Kathryn Canale coached her singers to belt it. Accompanist Paula Miller tickled ragtime tunes out of her electric piano enhanced by recorded period music. Choreographer Tabatha Bettin (who also outsized Widow Beasley’s role) incorporated standard song-and-dance tropes including a Broadway chorus line. Each popped out of the fabric in the start-stop, vaudevillian style of the form. Fluid transitions or nuance of any kind are not in the melodrama domain.
Director DiBiasio’s minimalist sets incorporated period furniture, painted backdrops, and cardboard entrances. Jason Lythgoe’s lighting design served the genre’s requirements, augmented by brief, green-lit references to the mysterious Lost Horse Mine. DiBiasio’s costume team went wild with three-piece business suits, aprons and dresses to indicate class, a cape to signal a reveal, and a black bear outfit worn by Jeni Hartmann, who also doubles as the assay office clerk.
Winning the over-the-top costume award was Riki Tsethlikai’s outlandish Bavarian Count Von Honkenschnozz. His ersatz European wardrobe and nose arrived, presumably by way of Cyrano de Bergerac.
To be inclusive, two dolled-up sign-card carriers, Lainey Severson and Candace Shapiro, underscored the vaudevillian connection to melodrama.
Running time is about two hours with intermission.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.