Up until this month, Old Globe audiences had only seen what director Darko Tresnjak could do with an enormous canvas.
As the artistic director and chief stage director for the Old Globe's Summer Shakespeare Festival, Tresnjak's previous shows here have all been Shakespeare plays, staged outdoors on a vast stage and with a cast of 20-plus actors (like this summer's brilliant "Hamlet").
So how does Tresnjak's always fertile imagination translate on a small, in-the-round stage with just five actors? In the case of the Globe's just-opened "Bell, Book and Candle," the answer is exquisitely.
With the help of designers Alexander Dodge (sets) and Emily Pepper (costumes), Tresnjak has crafted a time warp, transporting showgoers a half-century back in time to the stylish cityscape of 1950s Manhattan.
With a tip of the fedora to the romantic comedy films of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, Tresnjak's production of the John Van Druten comedy is perfectly in period, from the Saarinen-inspired sunken living room set, to the heroine's crisp crinoline skirt, to Tresnjak's almost cinematic direction (right down to the muffled squawking on the telephones and the snapshot-style, falling-in-love montage that typified films of the era).
No detail is overlooked visually or emotionally in this smart, snappy and delightfully cast production.
"Bell, Book and Candle" -- said to have inspired the '60s television series "Bewitched" -- is the story of a modern magical Manhattan family: 20something witch Gillian Holroyd, her mischievous warlock brother, Nicky, and their eccentric aunt, Queenie.
Bored, spoiled and eager for a little adventure, Gillian learns that her handsome bachelor neighbor, Shep Henderson, is engaged to marry her bitterest rival from college, so she bewitches him with a love spell and he quickly dumps his fiancee.
But two weeks into their whirlwind romance, Shep discovers Gillian's secret and he abandons her. Gillian's magical powers also abandon her -- the price she pays for falling in love with a mere mortal -- and all seems lost. As hopeless as this all may seem, never fear. Rock and Doris always ended up happily ever after, and Gillian and Shep are destined for the same sort of eternal celluloid bliss.
Besides the perfection of the production's retro look and feel, the casting is spot on -- particularly that of Melinda Page Hamilton as Gillian. With her hair browned and bobbed in a Gina Lollobrigida-style cut, Hamilton seems born to the era. She's at ease in the tall heels and confining skirts of the era, and she slinks seductively around the set like the whimsical black cat statues that ring the set. Cool, calculating and entirely unsympathetic in the first act, she slowly unmasks her vulnerabilities and becomes adorable by the final curtain.
As Shep, Adrian LaTourelle is a fine romantic foil for Gillian. He seems at first the epitome of a bland book publisher, but when transformed by the spell, LaTourelle exhibits a knack for comic timing and unpredictability.
Deborah Taylor's wonderfully loopy as the meddlesome Aunt Queenie. And John Lavelle is endearingly over the top as Gillian's flamboyant, devious brother, Nicky. Completing the cast is Gregor Pawslawsky as Sidney Retlitch, the magic-obsessed author who teams up with Nicky to write an expose on New York's witch world.
Presented in three acts with two intermissions, "Bell, Book and Candle" is a tad longer than it needs to be (particularly the inclusion of the Sidney character), but Tresnjak's staging is so fluid and delicious that you want it to go on and on.
No detail of this affectionate sendup feels overlooked, from the playful purr of Gillian's magical cat Pyewacket, to Paul Peterson's glorious and well-selected musical soundscape (from Rosemary Clooney to Frank Sinatra's swinging "Witchcraft").
The Old Globe's "Bell, Book and Candle" is a valentine to the innocent, optimistic love stories of the '50s. We wouldn't know for decades that Doris really wasn't Rock's type, but in those carefree, elegant film comedies, we believed, and with his classy homage to that era, Tresnjak makes us believers all over again.
"Bell, Book and Candle"
When: 7 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; through Sept. 9
Where: Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Old Globe Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $19-$62
Info: (619) 234-5623
Web: www.theoldglobe.org
