Theater serves many purposes both artistically and communally

Theater serves many purposes both artistically and communally. Artistically it offers an opportunity for playwrights to explore the depths of human emotion ranging from rage and love to indifference. For actors, it’s an opportunity to delve into the emotional depths of other’s lives and circumstances. In the community it can serve merely as entertainment or it can act as a profound cultural criticism.

In essence, “It’s our lifeline to humanity,” as Ethel, the incisive grandmother in the play “Moon Over Buffalo” puts it.

Valley Community Theatre’s production of the play has a little bit of everything as it explores romantic and familial relationships, infidelity, failing business and the ever-present fear of becoming yesterday’s papers all wrapped into a two-hour comedy.

Anchoring the cast is the erratic, but hilarious acting of David Holden in the role of George Hay.

George is an actor running a failing theater company in 1953. Together with his wife Charlotte, played by Leslie Franklin, he faces the harsh reality of traveling theater taking a back seat to film and television. Their dreams of breaking into the growing industry are nearly dead when the two are given one last chance to make it when Hollywood director Frank Capra comes to see their show while recasting his latest movie.

Supporting Holden were two stand-out performances from Barbara Brown in the role of Ethel and Emma Duncan in the role of Holden’s mistress, Ilene. Duncan displayed excellent versatility, flowing through an array of emotions in the span of just a few lines. Never overstated and well-paced, Duncan embodied a maturity uncommon for a community theater actor, let alone a high school junior.

Brown’s expressions spoke volumes for her character, hitting her comedic beats and holding them just long enough to let the moment sink in.

The superb direction of Solvang School teacher and director Amy Calvert kept the play rolling with its cast darting in and out of doors, pulling inadvertent identity switches and entanglements with an ex-mistress. Her direction balanced a barrage of physical comedy and author Ken Ludwig’s incessant wit.

The set and costumes were vibrant and detailed. The walls of the company’s back-stage area held housed posters from productions such as “You Can’t Take It With You” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

The only consistent weakness was the cast’s timing. While Franklin and Jim Farnum playing Richard, the company’s lawyer, was impeccable, an early entrance cut off an essential line about Frank Capra in the second act that left the ensuing punch line without its set up.

But in the end, it was a community theater performance that entertained its audience and provided a portrait of an acting company’s rough road through the changing times. The emotional impact of a family weathering the storm of infidelity and self-doubt shone brighter than the sum of its parts, bringing together actors from within the community to spark a revelatory examination of love, forgiveness and hope.