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Theater Review: Theater People, or, The Angel Next Door at Scripps Ranch Theatre
Theater People: Lots of silliness, just as much sincerity
When North Coast Rep gave us the world premiere of Paul Slade Smith’s Theater People, or, The Angel Next Door back in 2023, they left the first part of the title off the poster. That’s understandable: “The Angel Next Door” is vastly more grabby than “Theater People,” what with the romantic promise in its elevation of mythic The Girl Next Door to heavenly status.
And the angel next door is absolutely the engine of the play’s plot: the girl for whom (and about whom) a boy has written a novel manuscript so white-hot that a playwright couple has already penned a theatrical adaptation — in which they hope said girl will star. (What do you know, she’s an actress.) All that remains is for her to read and approve, and he’ll sign the publishing contract, and it’s off to Broadway. Which is why the boy and the couple are staying in the same posh Newport mansion as the actress. In fact…she’s staying right next door. Cue the madcappery.
But while that’s the plot, it’s not quite what the play is about. For that, you need that first part of the title, which Scripps Ranch Theatre has bravely kept in place for its current production. Theater People plays as a playwright’s sweet, amusing Apologia Pro Vita Sua: “On the one hand, I gotta eat; on the other, just look at the magic I can make by playing let’s pretend." Hollywood types just love movies about making movies. Just look at the slew of Oscars for Argo, The Artist, Birdman, etc. Why should theater people be any different? Looking at you, Hamlet, with your play-within-a-play…
It's not just the title. Mr. Smith has split himself neatly in two for this production, giving us the witty, self-indulgent, and slightly mopey Arthur Sanders and his hardworking, high-hoping wife Charlotte as the two sides of the playwright persona. (Kudos to the casting of Danny Campbell and Melissa Fernandes, who are fine as artistic types who are long past artistic differences.) As soon as they enter their room, they start setting the scene as if it were a play — which of course it is — noting the introduction of character and setting in their conversation, and wondering where they audience might be. It's all cheerfully self-conscious, right down to the comment on how there are too many doors in the room — almost certainly a nod to the astonishing quantity of open-and-shuttery in Smith’s Unnecessary Farce, given that a couple of the doors in this set never even get opened.
And just as in Hamlet, there is an audience on stage as well: Olga the housemaid, who begins the play with a stony tolerance for “theater people,” and ends with…something else. Nothing about the play’s crisis or its resolution is subtle; Slade makes a theatrical exercise out of seeing how much comedy he can wring from the ex
Here's something you might be interested in.
Theater Review: Theater People, or, The Angel Next Door at Scripps Ranch Theatre
Theater Review: Theater People, or, The Angel Next Door at Scripps Ranch Theatre
Theater People: Lots of silliness, just as much sincerity
When North Coast Rep gave us the world premiere of Paul Slade Smith’s Theater People, or, The Angel Next Door back in 2023, they left the first part of the title off the poster. That’s understandable: “The Angel Next Door” is vastly more grabby than “Theater People,” what with the romantic promise in its elevation of mythic The Girl Next Door to heavenly status.
And the angel next door is absolutely the engine of the play’s plot: the girl for whom (and about whom) a boy has written a novel manuscript so white-hot that a playwright couple has already penned a theatrical adaptation — in which they hope said girl will star. (What do you know, she’s an actress.) All that remains is for her to read and approve, and he’ll sign the publishing contract, and it’s off to Broadway. Which is why the boy and the couple are staying in the same posh Newport mansion as the actress. In fact…she’s staying right next door. Cue the madcappery.
But while that’s the plot, it’s not quite what the play is about. For that, you need that first part of the title, which Scripps Ranch Theatre has bravely kept in place for its current production. Theater People plays as a playwright’s sweet, amusing Apologia Pro Vita Sua: “On the one hand, I gotta eat; on the other, just look at the magic I can make by playing let’s pretend." Hollywood types just love movies about making movies. Just look at the slew of Oscars for Argo, The Artist, Birdman, etc. Why should theater people be any different? Looking at you, Hamlet, with your play-within-a-play…
It's not just the title. Mr. Smith has split himself neatly in two for this production, giving us the witty, self-indulgent, and slightly mopey Arthur Sanders and his hardworking, high-hoping wife Charlotte as the two sides of the playwright persona. (Kudos to the casting of Danny Campbell and Melissa Fernandes, who are fine as artistic types who are long past artistic differences.) As soon as they enter their room, they start setting the scene as if it were a play — which of course it is — noting the introduction of character and setting in their conversation, and wondering where they audience might be. It's all cheerfully self-conscious, right down to the comment on how there are too many doors in the room — almost certainly a nod to the astonishing quantity of open-and-shuttery in Smith’s Unnecessary Farce, given that a couple of the doors in this set never even get opened.
And just as in Hamlet, there is an audience on stage as well: Olga the housemaid, who begins the play with a stony tolerance for “theater people,” and ends with…something else. Nothing about the play’s crisis or its resolution is subtle; Slade makes a theatrical exercise out of seeing how much comedy he can wring from the ex