��MPA�s leads -- a ruggedly handsome Jeff Pierce as Curly and double-take beautiful Colleen Hawks as Laurey � give this staging human qualities that make the show more than an exercise in engaging song and dance.�
�Pierce�s Curly�is amazingly persuasive in the bunkhouse encounter with the surly farm hand, Jud. Anyone who can inject an air of credibility to �Pore Jud,� which may be the strangest song in all of musical theatre, is doing something very right. Pierce nails it.
The key is his starting point, a totally spontaneous response to Jud�s lariat, which is hanging on the wall. This Curly genuinely admires the rope�s qualities and its potential as a tool in the hands of an expert cowboy, then plays off Jud�s responses as he launches into sarcastic song. It�s a grim-but-funny number that generates its own momentum.�
�In one rare turn of staging, Pierce and Hawks do their own dancing in the dream sequence that expresses Laurey�s affection for Curly and fear of Jud. The parts are commonly given over to pure dancers. She�s balletic, he�s athletic and their movement together � including some spectacular lifts � is a grand fusion of grace, strength and musicality.�
--Leo Stutzin
Modesto Bee |
