Word: misses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...weak Miss Lonelyhearts tilts the balance of the play in Shrike's favor, and Lorenzo Mariani as the sharp-talking features editor makes the most of it. Poor Miss Lonelyhearts never really stands a chance. Mariani's magnificent presence and resonant voice dominate the stage, as he enunciates West's vision in a way that mixes cynicism with sense. Especially fine is Mariani's handling of Shrike's monologue, in which he relentlessly demonstrates to a bed-ridden Miss Lonelyhearts the futility of traditional means of escape...
Complementing Mariani's able performance is a strong supporting cast. Patrick O'Neill's Doyle is a pitiful yet somewhat ominous figure, and Rebecca Landrum as his frowzy and frustrated wife manifests a pathetic willfulness in her pursuit of Miss Lonelyhearts that is immensely effective. Together, they make an appropriately ill-matched couple, a fatal reification of those pain-filled letters which are Miss Lonelyhearts' particular curse...
ALSO FINE is Margaret Downey as Adele Farnum, Shrike's target. Aided by apt makeup and costuming, she fits comfortably into the '30s atmosphere, capturing well the archness of the classic tease. Miss Lonelyhearts' newsroom colleagues also do a more than adequate job. Derek Pajaczkowski as Ned Gates, "The failure incarnate," swings adroitly between hope and bitterness, and Brian Foley as "Flash" Goldsmith excels at wry faces. Less convincing is Brooke Davida Waxburg's Mrs. Shrike, more fluttery than seductive, while Holly Blatman as Betty--"the typical American girl, well-scrubbed and soft as steel"--labors courageously with the worst...
Leslie Keenan, Molly MacLean and Steve Jacobs, as three of Miss Lonelyhearts' correspondents, deliver poignant pleas for help in dramatically lighted and staged sequences. MacLean's portrayal of a Puerto Rican woman plagued by kidney trouble and unwanted pregnancies is one of the highlights of the production...
...Kolzak's Miss Lonelyhearts also boasts an inventive set, which places the newsroom squarely in the center of a hopelessly corrupt world. Period music between scenes, another nice touch, reinforces the '30's flavor of the show...