who else but the French can wink at marital infidelity and look the other way?
Such is Civic Light Opera’s subject in “The Baker’s Wife,” a rather daring departure from their usual, mainstream fare.
I say daring because marital infidelity or adultery or cheating on your spouse is a fact of life but one that most of us have trouble not feeling judgmental about. “The Baker’s Wife” doesn’t.
This is a tender, bittersweet love story about a May-December marriage. It is framed in lightweight, musical comedy with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Joseph Stein. It is true to life, matter of fact and wise in its ways with human emotions and attitudes.
The story starts like this.
Everyone has bread. The middle-aged baker of bread adores his young, trim wife. Life is good in an out-of-the-way village in Provence, France, 1935. But it is also unchanging, dull and downright boring.
That is, until a rambunctious young stud makes off with the baker’s wife.
The baker, stupefied, sinks into a funk and stops baking bread. The villagers — who may not live by bread alone but, without it, react is if they did — explode into hysterics. And from there on, it is all about actions and reactions, attitudes and answers and crisis and crisis resolution.
Frank Kohel profiles a likeable, teddy-bear of a baker torn in two by the loss of his pretty, young thing and unbearably vulnerable. It is impossible not to suffer almost as much as Kohel does.
Jenny Dreessen as the renegade wife can never shed her scarlet letter, not entirely; but you can, to some extent understand if not forgive her.
Dawn Brazel as the outspoken wife of the café owner adds conviction and weight to the yearning that goes unsatisfied by too many wives whose husbands take them for granted.
Mok Moser’s teacher professes the logical approach to matters of the heart; you know, the approach some men take that never gets them anywhere?
And Ryan Mccabe as the priest delivers the “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned,” the French-Catholic Church’s position on philandering as sin.
The story is sound. The cast is solid.
Costumes are period, plain and appropriately so for villagers as well as drab for that hussy, the baker’s wife. The production’s pace is unhurried but by no means slow or drawn out. Artistic Director, Greg Morales, is on his game. Ann Arends’ directing is in top form.
The look and sound of this production is professional all the way around. This is a funny, touching offering with something to say and a sensibility worth absorbing. Give it a try. I liked it.
Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at grayghost7@comcast.net.
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