Quiz-show drama big win for Star Bar
It’s worth the price of admission to the Star Bar Players’ production of “Night and Her Stars” just to see David Hastings’ performance as Dan Enright.
The real-life TV producer was one of the people at the center of the 1950s TV quiz-show scandals, in which contestants on supposedly spontaneous shows were coached beforehand to create more satisfying entertainment. As re-imagined by playwright Richard Greenberg, Enright becomes one of the 20th century’s great stage villains — an amoral monster with a laserlike ability to exploit character flaws — and Hastings’ performance is devastatingly on-target. But, as they would say on TV, “Wait, there’s more.”
Kaleb Kohart gives an emotionally wrenching performance as Herb Stempel, the awkward egghead whom Enright sets up to lose to someone more likable; and as Charles Van Doren — that someone more likable — Jude Bishop gives a suave, patrician portrayal of a man who can’t accept the grace the world has bestowed on him.
The supporting cast is also stellar, and director Mark Hennessy has included effective film sequences, one of which features a fine performance from Bob Pinney as Mark Van Doren, Charles’ Pulitzer-winning father.
Greenberg’s 1995 play shares its subject with the 1994 film, “Quiz Show.” Out of what seems like a story of trivial corruption, Greenberg creates a fable of good and evil, of decent people seduced and compromised by temptations they don’t understand.
Of course, it helps that Greenberg had great material to start with. For Van Doren’s climactic appearance before a Senate committee, Greenberg simply adapted the man’s own words.
But there’s no model for Enright’s dialogue. Greenberg creates a villain of Shakespearean scope — but speaking modern English.
Enright has realized a primal and dangerous truth about people: The easiest way to get us to do something bad is to persuade us we’re actually doing good. When Stempel balks at throwing the quiz, Enright appeals to his integrity: “When a man gives his word, we expect him to keep it.” When Van Doren’s conscience starts to nag him, Enright tells him he’s responsible for surging college applications.
Roy Ballard’s set is simplicity itself, and the production’s black-and-white costumes and setpieces conjure the world of the 1950s. A huge, center-stage television screen becomes one of the play’s most important characters.
It’s hard not to love a play in which one character refers to the TV audience as “a scurrying swarm of greed-crazed maggots.” With “Night and Her Stars,” the Star Bar Players have set the bar high for the new season.
But don’t get me wrong. This isn’t just a great play for Star Bar — a community theater group. It would be an outstanding show for any company or traveling troupe in this city.
details
Star Bar Players present ‘Night and Her Stars’
When: 8 p.m. today and Nov. 3, 10-11, 2 p.m. Saturday and Nov. 5 and 12
Where: Lon Chaney Theatre, City Auditorium, 221 E. Kiowa St.
Tickets: $5-$15; 573-7411
