‘Annie’ at the Forestburgh Playhouse – a review

By TOM KANE

FORESTBURGH, NY — I can’t recall having a better time at the Forestburgh Playhouse than when I attended the theater company’s production of “Annie” last week.

The lone exception is the company’s production of “The Full Monty,” which was performed last summer. That was the high-water mark of the playhouse, as far as I am concerned.

But “Annie” nearly came up to it.

How could a production like this miss, with a bevy of the cutest little girls I have ever seen on a single stage. (They could sing as well as look cute.) And a star who carries so well the full weight of the show on her delicate, young shoulders — musically and dramatically — as young 10-year-old Rilee O’Neill of Montgomery, NY, who plays the title role. (Such a voice!) And a nasty villain like Miss Hannigan, played outlandishly and juicily by Natalie Buster. And a second headliner with the clear, resonant baritone of David DuPont, who played the philanthropic Daddy Warbucks. And a secretary with such a lovely presence and voice as Grace Farrell, played by Amy Decker. And an even more villainous villain, Rooster, played by the multi-talented Richard Amelius, who sings, dances, choreographs and sneers so mightily.

And a chorus of singers and dancers who support the action of the musical drama so well that you hardly notice them (which is what a truly good chorus should do in a drama).

And all of this supported by very creative and visually interesting staging and directing. (Norman, you did it again.)

So, you see why I had such a good time.

Some reviewers of the show— especially the movie — say the flavor of “Annie” is almost schmaltz. It’s too sentimental. It’s too melodramatic. Too unrealistic. Well, they haven’t been where Annie had been and felt what she felt (and what the two authors, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, felt). To those who were not born during the Great Depression, the secrets of “Annie” may be a closed book.

But I grew up with “Little Orphan Annie” and, since I was a half orphan (my father died six months into the Depression), I had the stark pile of Saint John’s Orphanage for Boys on the next block continually haunting me, since I might easily end up there. I shuddered with Annie in the grim, menacing clutch of the place and I rejoiced with her when she was freed from its vile incubus and found her shining savior.

The kids in the orphanage scene are forlorn, yet they break out in joy when the villain Miss Hanagan is thwarted. You feel that when they sing “Maybe” and “Hard Knock Life.”

You feel what Annie feels when she hopes against hope in the song “Tomorrow,” the production’s show stopper, and “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here.”

And they say, Daddy Warbucks is a caricature, flat and unconvincing. Well, maybe. But the warmth of Warbucks and his defrosting by the darling little girl as he sings “I Don’t Need Anything but You” was real to me, especially as David DuPont with his rich and manly voice conveys it. I love the guy and wish that I had had a Daddy Warbucks myself.

There’s a lot more in this show than I am highlighting. I’m only hitting the high points. It is for you not to miss “Annie” and the other Forestburgh Playhouse productions if you can possibly help it.