I was late getting around to seeing the Winter Park Playhouse production of “Forever Plaid” — but not as late as the characters in the show were in getting to their debut concert.
“Forever Plaid” is somewhat unique in the theater canon that all of its characters are dead.
Stuart Ross’ helping of nostalgia was first performed in New York in 1989. It tells of a 1950s singing group, the Plaids, who embody the cleancut vibe and close harmonies of the era. The four young men are killed in a car accident before they can make their big debut.
We’re told the fatal crash occurred on Feb. 9, 1964 — but the only significance of that date is that it seems to have been chosen just so Ross could squeeze in the Beatles’ “She Loves You,” which wasn’t released until ’63.
And now, direct from somewhere in the Great Beyond — the theology of this is hazy — the quartet is back to give the performance it missed out on. (Toni Chandler’s clever piece-by-piece costumes neatly match the Plaids’ growing confidence.)
Really, the whole show is an excuse to revisit such ’50s hits as “Three Coins in the Fountain” or “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” or the 1952 chart-topping “Heart and Soul” — yes, that catchy piano ditty everyone knows and in this show serves as the somewhat risky basis for an interlude of surprisingly successful audience participation.
If this music is your jam, well, that’s reason enough to go. These four guys can sing, I mean really sing, and music director Christopher Leavy has done a bang-up job of guiding them through the harmonics of this style. The blend is so smooth that you may find yourself, like I did once or twice, unsure of which guy is singing which note. It’s just one beautiful wall of sound.
The show’s comedy doesn’t hit the same heights. Director Steven Flaa has engineered a sweet and believable camaraderie among the men of his cast. But he’s hampered by the fact the show has only two basic running jokes: The maladies of the men (nosebleed, ulcer, asthma), and the fact that they aren’t quite ready for prime time — a missed entrance here, a misstep in the choreography there.
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Ross goes to those two wells too many times over the course of the relatively short show, though Flaa does his best to provide some variation where he can and with some success, in part because of the charms of his cast.
Adorably earnest Adourin Jamelle Owens shares a soaring tenor that’s the star of the song “Cry.” Blake Rushing Mitchell has lovely tone quality when he takes the lead on “Catch a Falling Star” and others. Lynford Martin Parries is stuck playing the most socially awkward Plaid, but he makes the most of it in a touching reminiscence about old jukeboxes. And his voice goes down deep on old favorite “Sixteen Tons.” Jameson Stobbe has the right light touch, especially with the silly “Perfidia” (I had to look that one up; it actually dates back to the 1940s).
Speaking of looking things up, I found myself wondering how much longer this show will resonate. Many of the songs are fading into obscurity, and an extended “Ed Sullivan Show” segment — the comic highlight of the musical — is full of references to performers who even now are hazy in my mind.
I fear that although hope springs eternal for the Plaids, with the way cultural trends ebb and flow — and disappear — this show may have a shelf life. Better catch this one while you can.
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‘Forever Plaid’
What: Winter Park Playhouse production of the musical comedy
Length: 1:35, no intermission
Where: Mandell Theater at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center, 812 E. Rollins Ave. in Orlando
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