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Review

Earnest comeback doesn't benefit 'Gemini'

A revival of the play that once was fresh and funny now seems trite.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published July 16, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - It must have seemed potentially interesting for Gypsy Productions to revive Gemini, a 1977 play by Albert Innaurato that ran four years on Broadway and helped to launch the careers of actors such as Sigourney Weaver and Danny Aiello. Just out of Yale Drama School, Innaurato was hailed as part of a new wave of young American playwrights that included David Mamet and Christopher Durang.

Early success can be fatal. Innaurato hasn't written a notable play since - he's known more now as a music journalist than playwright - and Gypsy's staging of Gemini at the Suncoast Theatre suggests why his star has faded.

Gemini was probably a hit because of its novelty at the time. The play contrasts an earthy working-class milieu and WASP interlopers and a typically tormented coming-out tale, all of it presumably autobiographical, considering that the gay Innaurato grew up in an Italian neighborhood in South Philadelphia. But the '70s aura is painfully dated, and the drama is little more than a cartoon.

Unfortunately, there are no budding Weavers or Aiellos in the Gypsy production, directed by Dan Khoury with the earnestness of a masterpiece of naturalism by Williams or Miller. (Treating Gemini as a flat-out burlesque might actually have helped.) Instead, there's a mixed bag of performers who don't have anything to work with in the shallow characterizations.

Harry Richards isn't bad as Francis, the Harvard undergrad who has a case of the summertime blues, holed up in his room listening to opera records. All is gradually revealed when two rich kids from school, brother and sister Randy and Judith, turn up and pitch a tent in his backyard. Though Francis once had a fling with Judith (SaRa Schabach), it comes as no surprise that he is really turned on by Randy (Christian Maier).

This triangle features the usual miscommunications and mistaken motives, all more or less understandable. But Francis' moment of supposed self-recognition at the end is baffling.

One place where the play stumbles badly is in the character of Francis' father, Fran, a reformed gambler whose calls of "Yo, Francis!" quickly become tiresome. Michael Crockett's halting, approximate line readings on opening night made things worse.

Also on hand are a pair of types. Bunny, a divorced, drunken Irishwoman who lives next door, is a truly horrid harridan in the performance of Carolyn Zaput, who delivers the profanity that makes Gemini something of a naughty night out. Francine Wolf is Fran's annoying girlfriend, Lucille, who has a trademark line, "I'll just pick," as she digs into his plate of pasta. Filling out the cast is Herschel (Derek Baxter), Bunny's eccentric, if not mildly disabled, son who has a thing for mass transit.

The set (designed by Khoury, Trevor Keller and Richard Traylor) portrays the cramped backyard of red-brick apartments, allowing plenty of dialogue from window to window. Food is a motif, and the laborious setting up and taking down of a rickety table and lawn chairs accompanies every meal.

Gemini by Albert Innaurato runs through July 31 at the Suncoast Theatre, 3000 34th St. S, St. Petersburg. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Sunday. $16. (727) 456-0500. Hospitality Night performance is 8 p.m. Monday, with $10 admission.

[Last modified July 16, 2005, 00:24:14]