Academy plays ‘Take It’ like sketch comedy

If you've never seen Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's 1936 "You Can't Take It With You," then my guess is there are plenty of belly-laughs in store for you in the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Visual and Performing Arts' production.

The authors' chronicling of the day-to-day looniness of a loving and eccentric Depression-era family is, at times, as funny as farce can get. But I found myself wishing that more of the comedy could have come from the characters instead of from actors trying hard to be zany.

We're in the home of Grandpa Martin Vanderhof (Elijah O'Connell) who prides himself on not having paid taxes in decades. Daughter Penny (Kaleigh Wright) sits at a table typing much of the time, determined to write a play only because someone has left her a typewriter. Hubby Paul (Mark Bettencourt) likes to make things in the basement that blow up. Mr. DePinna (Matt Phillips), his partner in explosives, is an iceman who cometh eight years ago and never left. Daughter Essie (Kaitlyn Greco, double-cast with Tia Konsur) is a wannabe ballerina who can't walk across the floor without leaping.

In the middle of this chaos is poor, "normal" daughter Alice (Anna Bax) who's too ashamed of her family to have her "normal" boyfriend Tony (Ryan Wesen) get mixed with up with them through marriage.

To make this script work, these people need to feel three-dimensional. What we get here most of the time are performers who know too well where the laughs are. Their line deliveries sound well-rehearsed and shtick-ish.

The play begins with an introduction to Essie, and actress Greco immediately over-emphasizes her dance poses to the point of silliness. By the time she does this for the 10th time, we're ready to pirouette out of the theater. The Kirbys, Tony's parents (Kelley Malloy and Caitlyn Cerza), are stuffed shirts, and in director Melissa Lilly's hands, that's all they are. We don't buy for a second that they're human beings. And Mr. Kirby undergoes an amazing transformation in behavior that rings false. Not enough attention has been made in fleshing out his (and others') moment-to-moment behavior.

Wesen has an easygoing, leading-man earnestness as Tony that gives the production grounding. Aaron Fentress manages to find the soul of a fiery Russian ballet coach. And John Morris' spacious, homey living-room set is a marvel of detail.

Just about all the actors are talents I'd enjoy seeing again. But Lilly's overstated direction straightjackets most of the cast members. They're doing sketch-comedy with material that demands much more.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.