By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
As with most theatrical productions with large casts, Baldwinsville Theatre Guild’s current staging of “Bright Star” is primarily an ensemble achievement. Directed by music director Colin Keating — who teaches chorus and theater at Baker High — “Bright Star” features a mostly experienced cast playing out an Appalachian melodrama to the high lonesome sounds of bluegrass music.
While Keating keeps his 18 actors and five bandmates working together to tell two simultaneous stories, one in 1924 and another in 1945, his leading lady tackles a challenging role and practically runs away with the whole show. Ceara Windhausen blends her significant stage presence and stunning mezzo soprano voice to shine as the brightest light on the “Bright Star” stage.
She plays Alice Murphy, a successful editor of a literary journal whose humble backwoods background belies her prestigious position. In this inventive musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, Windhausen — a proven performer who has twice been honored with Syracuse Area Local Theater awards — plays a character with an amazing 24-year arc. It’s almost as though she’s playing two entirely different persons, one a free-spirited, two-steppin’ country gal and another a strait-laced, prim and proper editor. In the blink of an eye, Windhausen’s Alice goes from straw-hat-overflowing hair to tightly bobby-pinned buns. From calico to silk and back again.
After making an inauspicious entrance at the opening of Act 1 making her way through the pit band at the back of Rein Schlecta’s effective faux barnwood set design, Windhausen sets the scene by singing “If You Knew My Story,” a tune replete with hidden meanings. As the story unfolds, Alice sings duets with aspiring writer Billy, enthusiastically portrayed by Merry-Go-Round Theatre staffer Kilian Crowley, and with her first love, Jimmy Ray, played by the gifted Oswego vocalist Gary Carpentier.
The musical tells a sweeping tale of love and redemption set against the rich backdrop of the American South in the 1920s and ’40s, and every one of the 17 actors delivers their lines in a delightful drawl. When Alice meets Billy, a young soldier just home from World War II, he awakens her longing for the child she once lost. Haunted by their connection, Alice sets out on a journey to understand her past — and what she finds might just transform both of their lives.
While the convoluted plot will have audiences wondering whose story they’re actually following — Billy’s and Margo’s? Alice’s and Jimmy Ray’s? Whose? — I suggest they forget about figuring it out and simply focus attention on Alice. Focus on Alice, and Ceara will see you through to the inevitable happy ending.
Some of Act 1’s standout songs include the title tune vocalized by Crowley, “A Man’s Gotta Do” sung by Carpentier and Aaron Pierce as the evil Mayor Dobbs and “Asheville” performed by Hali Greenhouse as Margo, the small-town bookshop clerk. Two exhilarating numbers fire up Act 2, as choreographer Emmily Budge puts the cast through its paces including quicksteps, fox trots and jitterbugs especially on “Another Round,” sung by Kilian Crowley, Meara Mosny and Ryan Sparkes, while the hopeful harmony of “Sun’s Gonna Shine” is vocalized by Windhausen, Greenhouse, Andy Butchko and Christy Ashby.
Carpentier — who appeared on national television two years ago on NBC’s “The Voice” — displays the depth of his talent on the ballad, “Heartbreaker.”
Although folk music is not his forte, Keating ably helms the onstage sextet which spotlights fiddler Maggie Mercer, banjoman Nic MacLane and bassist Brian McIlroy. Keating himself even straps on an accordion for some of the dance tunes.
Yes, there’s plenty to like about BTG’s “Bright Star” — the set, the band, the choreography, the leads, the ensemble and Andrea Calarco’s period costumes. But time after time, audiences will find themselves applauding the accomplished Ceara Windhausen as Alice Murphy. Whether she’s belting out another number or pontificating on the misuse of commas, her Alice rules!
Windhausen has that indefinable it, a vibrant stage presence with personality to spare. And she owns one of the best singing voices ever to grace local stages with pitch, power and precision. Ceara Windhausen is a bright star, indeed.
“Bright Star,” produced by Willow Eckel, continues at the First Presbyterian Education Center, 64 Oswego St., at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 2 and at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7 and 8. Tickets cost $28, and $24 for students and seniors; baldwinsvilletheatreguild.org; 315-877-8465.
