THANK YOU, PAPA; Hale Center Theater Orem; 225 W. 400 North; through May 13; 226-8600; running time, 2 hours with one intermission.
OREM — "Thank You, Papa," which opened Friday, is a story of gratitude for the lessons that theater founder Ruth Hale learned as a youngster under the tutelage of a strict father.
As the late founder and playwright says herself, the man was difficult, but in the end she learned discipline and became a better person for it — hence the title. Set in the mid-1920s, the comedy has been in mothballs — so far as the Orem theater goes — for a decade. The family dusted it off for another run with family members playing many of the parts. Much of the story is based on fact with a little fiction thrown in for interest. Ryan Hale Radebaugh directed.
As a group, the actors nailed their characters; conversely, on opening night, most still hadn't nailed their lines. They stuttered, they stammered, they forgot. They were the antithesis of ol' Will Hudson's discipline.
"It'll get better," one of the actors said after the play.
To complicate matters, it was a tough audience. Theatergoers laughed at the obvious humor, but some of the more subtle lines didn't faze them.
The story itself, the 47th play Ruth and her husband, Nathan Hale, wrote, is simplistic and wraps up a bit too neatly. Yet it is cute and entertaining and requires little or nothing from the audience. Tanya Hale Radebaugh, Ruth and Nathan Hale's daughter, was convincing as she played her real-life grandmother, Edith Hudson, mother of the adopted Ruth. As Edith Hudson, she attempts to protect Ruth from her father.
Katie Pulsipher carried much of the story as Ruth, playing her own real-life great-grandmother. One of her suitors, the snooty and wealthy Paul LePeir, was aptly played by Nathan Hardy, one of the few in the cast unrelated to the Hale family. Yet Hardy comes from a family also intent on entertaining; his sister, Stacia Hardy, played Anita in the recent production of "West Side Story" at the Hale. In their dedication to the theater, you could say the families are "Hale and Hardy."
As the irascible Will Hudson, Ruth's domineering father, Cody Hale came across with clarity. He played his role with relish. Some of the parts, including the role of Will Hudson, are double cast with Joel A. Osborne stepping in on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The entire three-act play takes place on a single set with few changes.
Although a fun escape, it's not the best play you'll see on the Hale Center Theater stage this season.
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com