Mornings At Seven

Little Theatre of Virginia Beach

Theatre Reviewer: Robert Cox

“Mornings At Seven”, comes to the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach boasting more than one trip around the track. The 1938 play, penned by Paul Osborn, made its debut on Broadway in 1939, was revived in 1980, and again in 2002. In 1982, it was presented as a television performance. It can boast of many drama awards and a host of known actors and actresses taking a crack at the nine juicy characters in the play.

Any script that is 72 years old is going to be dated. And this one is. But, that is not to say that it lacks an application to our current times. This story presents us with four sisters, and an assortment of husbands, children and an extremely patient (9 years patient) fiancée, all of whom have their own baggage compounded by a script riddled with deceit and suspicion, love, loyalty and duty, despair and confusion, a laugh or two, a good dose of poignancy and a relatively happy ending looking like it was engineered by the Brothers Grimm. All of this, leaving us with a full plate of food for thought, as we exited the theatre.

Now this is where I would usually move into a listing of cast members, their respective characters and a lot of plaudits on an individual basis. You would see expounding on the outstanding members of the cast, and not see much of anything on those who are politely excused from comment by virtue of their mendacity. Fortunately for this reviewer and, for anyone viewing this production, this will not be a format for this review.

Was it the genius of the casting panel? Was it the insightful and communicative talents of the director, Christopher Bernhardt and assistant director, Chris Hogan? Was it the talent of the nine actors we saw on stage? Was it the magic of a group of interwoven community theatre folk who are very comfortable with one another? Was it just dumb luck? I do not know. But, what I do know, is that I have not seen another show on this level, which had a more balanced and effective cast. They were technically near perfect, well rehearsed, each aware of the meaning and importance of their own part even to a line, how that part fit into the overall story and none above the other in talent. If I were pressed to say the name of one player more outstanding than the rest, I could not. These actors were their characters, and as real as we would want them to get. It was a production surely a pleasure to watch.

I had not had occasion to visit the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach before. If you have not, you should. If you are a local theatre-goer there you are fortunate to have such a nice warm and friendly facility there, producing quality theatre. I perused the shows of the current season and the upcoming one. There is such a nice variety of performance. Certainly an asset to the cultural arts community at The Beach.

“Mornings At Seven” will be playing for two more weekends through the end of May. If you like good theatre, do it. Musicals and comedy’s are fun, but give me a good drama any day.

http://ltvb.com/