By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
With the baseball season still young, the Waterville Playshop brings us back to a more innocent time.
A time before high-priced free agents. Before designated hitters. Before wild card games.
Back when the winner of the league pennant went straight to the World Series. When the Washington Senators were perpetual cellar dwellers in the American League.
A time when a frustrated fan could sell his soul to the devil for a chance to be reincarnated into the player who will turn his team around.
That means beating those “Damn Yankees.” (It’s nice to see some things like hating on the Yankees stay the same.)
The Playshop is staging the classic musical comedy “Damn Yankees” opening tonight (Friday, April 11) at 8 p.m. at the Maumee Indoor Theater, 601 Conant St, Maumee, The show continues Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 13 at 2:30 p.m. Click for tickets.
The musical is directed by Marshall Kupresanin with music direction by Brock Burkett and choreography by Brittany Kupresanin.
The 1955 “Damn Yankees” with book by George Abbott and Douglas Wallop and a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross introduces us to Joe Boyd (Dennis Kale), a married middle aged real estate agent, who is a Washington Senators fanatic.
As his wife Meg (Diane Ley) laments she has to share her husband with her husband for six months out of the year from April through September.
When a frustrated Joe exclaims that he’d sell his soul for the Senators to find the power hitter they need, poof, Mr. Applegate (Steven Sloan), the devil’s own agent, appears at his door with a deal. Not only will he provide that slugger to the Senators, but he will transform Joe into that star. After wrangling an escape clause into the contract, Joe signs and he becomes Joe Hardy (Kyle Moninger).
Hardy and the audience are then thrust into the world of the ballpark, which Applegate also inserts himself into the clubhouse. A foreshadowing of the rise of the agent?
Of course, what does the team need the devil for when they have an intrepid reporter, Gloria Thorpe (Ellen Taylor). At first she seems excited that the team will have a star to inject some excitement into the games. She even coins a nickname “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.”
But she keeps pressing for details about this player who emerged from nowhere.
The manager (Matt Badyna) is glad to have some added spark to his woebegone team. Before Joe’s arrival he encourages them that to succeed they just “gotta have heart.”
Joe might be happy leading the team to success, including over the Yankees, but he misses home and his wife, going so far as to rent a room from Meg, just to be near her.
Applegate is not pleased with such sentimentality, so he summons one of his top operatives Lola (Jordan Miller) to seduce Joe. She informs Joe that what Lola wants, Lola gets.
Of course, ball players, at least back then, had to leave the “booze and broads” aside so they’re ready for the game. They detail their struggles in a song replete with series of set-ups for dirty jokes.
As the team succeeds much to the delight of the owner Welch (Brittany Burns) and the fans including Meg’s friends played by Christa Pollauf and Marsha Cochran.
But as the wins pile up, Joe’s situation grows more fraught. And the details of devil’s dealings are unclear at this point. It all comes down to a hard hit ball to the outfield with devil in stands.
Fans of baseball and old fashioned love stories will want to catch “Damn Yankees.”
