That Girl

Apart from angst-ridden playwrights, hostile audiences and long periods of unemployment, the greatest challenge faced by a professional actor is the tricky business of sharing the stage with children and small animals. W.C. Fields made hating kids downright stylish, despite the fact that he began his own career by running away from home at the age of fourteen to become the first American headliner at Paris’s Folies-Bergere.

But though the child-actor phobias of some performers are understandable, theatergoers can’t get enough of the little hams. Audience members remain devoted to theatrical conventions that today’s cutting-edge directors routinely dismiss as passe. And for the last twenty years, one musical, Annie, has banked on spectators’ intuitive responses to become a crowd-pleasing, though decidedly unhip, phenomenon.

A twentieth-anniversary production of the comic-strip musical is now on stage at the Buell Theatre, boasting members of the original Broadway creative team, including director and lyricist Martin Charnin. As an additional attraction, the touring production features television stars Conrad John Schuck (Rock Hudson’s sidekick in McMillan and Wife) in the role of Daddy Warbucks and All in the Family’s Sally Struthers as Miss Hannigan, the orphanage director.

All of which makes for a genuinely (albeit mildly) entertaining revival. The pointedly sappy show begins with a tinny overture that touches upon a few of the musical’s themes, including the oft-hummed “Tomorrow.” As the curtain rises, we’re introduced to the young girls of Miss Hannigan’s orphanage. After singing “It’s a Hard-Knock Life,” Annie (Brittny Kissinger) decides to embark on a mission to find her birth parents. Though she’s returned to Hannigan’s care after a few minutes of freedom, she manages to catch the eye of Warbucks’s secretary, Grace (Lisa Gunn), and winds up spending Christmas with the philanthropically inclined billionaire. When Annie tells Warbucks of her quest to find her father and mother, the tycoon cashes in some favors with President Roosevelt (Raymond Thorne), who puts fifty FBI agents on the case. As might be expected in this feel-good affair, the G-men foil a plot by Hannigan’s brother, Rooster (Laurent Giroux), to defraud Warbucks of the $50,000 reward he puts up to aid Annie’s search.

Kissinger is a charming Annie, overcoming a slow start to deliver a well-sung, sprightly portrayal. Schuck is a fine Warbucks, portraying the businessman as an uncomplicated sort who would just as easily choose to do a good deed as make another million. As a result, his ballad “Something Was Missing” becomes a heartfelt, moving aria instead of the schmaltzy exercise that might have resulted from a more stereotypical approach to the character.

Struthers has certainly come a long way since being Archie Bunker’s little girl, but her trademark comic timing, delightful takes and over-the-top gestures all contribute to a properly bombastic portrayal. She’s backed up by Giroux’s solid performance as the swaggering villain. And Jodi Carmeli’s beautiful voice soars in her twenty seconds of fame as “a star to be.”

Though it won’t be considered particularly significant or relevant these days, this production of Annie still packs a theatrical punch. That it does so by relying on a largely apolitical storyline, hummable tunes and the well-acted efforts of sentimentally inclined professionals must confound the world’s curmudgeons no end.

–Lillie

Annie, through March 22 at the Buell Theatre, in the Plex at 14th and Curtis, 893-4100.