By Victor Gluck ; October 3, 2011

Melodrama in the theater has come to be a dirty word but it was the staple of the American theater until the advent of realism and the plays of Eugene O’Neill. Metropolitan Playhouse whose mission is exploring plays of the American theatrical heritage has rediscovered a smash hit from 1903 From Rags to Riches by Charles A. Taylor, known as the “The Master of Melodrama.” From Rags to Riches, written for the author’s then wife, later the legendary Laurette Taylor who made her New York debut in the leading role, is great fun because of the intricate plotting, the outrageous contrivances, and Alex Roe’s delightful production.

The Metropolitan Playhouse’s 20th season is devoted to “Class” and From Rags to Riches delineates two classes in American society: the haves and the have nots. Money and its use is the underlying theme of the play, and in that it seems extremely modern. It depicts a turn-of-the-century New York in which some are very rich and above the law, while the rest are poor and automatically suspect. On that level, it is a parallel for our culture today where money talks and wealthy crooks get off lightly while the disenfranchised languish in their poverty as well as find themselves without resources before the law. And those who spend extravagantly are seen as celebrity heroes and trendsetters, even when they come to a bad end.

From Rags to Riches is a classic melodrama in that it includes all of the required elements of the genre: damsels in distress, nefarious villains who appear to be virtuous, asides to the audience, multiple coincidences, attempts at violent crimes, large emotions, characters in disguise, emphasis on physical action, sudden reversals of fortune, and a happy ending for all the good characters and a bad end for the evildoers. This play, however, is also much neater than such plays usually are.

Each of the play’s seven scenes ends with the requisite cliffhanger, but the play is very well crafted with no loose ends. Taylor appears to have known of Ibsen and the well-made play formula while at the same time exploding the rules of the by then old-fashioned Victorian melodrama. The characters may be stock types but they are fully developed and all of the main characters put in an appearance in each act. This is unlike the construction of many traditional melodramas in which characters reappear only as plot devices for the author.

Much of the play depends on the back story which is laid out in the first scene. Fourteen years earlier, evil gambler Prince Charlie, nephew and heir to old Montgomery, had framed Albert Cooper in order to seduce his wife Gertrude, who then lost her two children. Just as Albert is let out of prison, Charlie meets and lusts after Flossie, the counter girl at the coffee stand run by Mother Murphy, who has adopted the orphaned girl and her younger brother Ned.

Meanwhile, Prince Charlie is living in an unmarried state at his uncle’s house with the gold-digging Flora pretending to be Cooper’s wife to whom Charlie claims to be making amends. Unknown to Charlie, his uncle’s nurse who wears dark glasses is the missing Gertrude, and Flossie is the lost daughter that she seeks.

The plot is put in action when Flora and Charlie attempt to poison his uncle in order to inherit his estate. Flossie’s plucky brother, known as Ned Nimble the newspaper boy, comes to the rescue as Prince Charlie attempts to kidnap his sister and take her out of the country on his ill-gotten gains, while Mother Murphy is taken in by Charlie’s elegant manners and practically throws the impressionable Flossie at him.

Aside from his impeccable casting and understated direction, Roe is also responsible for setting the beginning of each scene to original music which establishes a mood of Victorian music hall. In addition, he is responsible for the simple but effective sets which allow for quick changes from a street on the Bowery, to a mansion on Manhattan’s West Side, the roof of the Waldorf Hotel, a basement dive, and an estate on the Hudson. Sidney Fortner’s many costumes are redolent of the period as well as attractive in their own right. Flora’s gowns are particularly stunning.

Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Tod Mason make excellent adversaries as Flossie and Prince Charlie. Schmoyer’s disarming Flossie is the uncultured girl brought up on the streets who will do almost anything for money – but within moral limits. Mason’s Charlie is the suave villain who does not twirl a mustache but is much more insidious in his evil doing. As Flossie’s resourceful brother Ned, Paul Bomba deals heroically with the worst of Prince Charlie’s malevolent schemes and much of the physical exploits. Carol Lambert’s cheerful laidback Irish charm as Mother Murphy contrasts with Ingrid Saxon’s intense and impassioned Gertrude.

Claire Warden, on the other hand, gives an elegant, drawing room portrayal of the mercenary Flora, looking and sounding a great deal like the young Diana Rigg. Ralph Petrarca is convincing as the alcoholic Albert Cooper, as well as responsible for the deft arrangements and live accompaniment to the songs before each scene. Straight out of a turn-of-the-last century penny dreadful but no longer to be seen in movies or plays, Erwin Falcon is amusing as the evil Chinese Sam. Peter Judd and Richard Cottrell give able assistance as old Montgomery and retired Police Detective Brown incognito, respectively. Josh Gulotta and V. Orion Delwaterman demonstrate their versatility playing ten roles between them.

Metropolitan Playhouse has found a winner in the forgotten From Rags to Riches by Charles A. Taylor. From the polished direction of Alex Roe, to the admirable stylishness of the 13 member cast, to the appealing visual design and musical interludes, this is an excellent introduction to theater before realism. The Age of Melodrama may be dead and buried, but you would never know it from this 108 year old play which turns out to be great fun in our century.

Melodrama Returns, Flaunting Its Chaos and Clichés

By Ken Jaworoski ; September 26, 2011

According to the Metropolitan Playhouse “From Rags to Riches” has not been revived in New York for more than 100 years. After seeing the play you’ll wonder if the last troupe to stage it has yet recovered from the experience. A sprawling tale assembled from dozens of styles, genres and plots, the show is by turns slapdash, bewildering, rousing and ridiculous. It’s also more appealing than it has any right to be.
“From Rags to Riches,” first performed in 1903, was written by the “Master of Melodrama,” Charles A. Taylor, who in 1892 had five plays running at once in New York. Parts comedy, drama and thriller, “Rags” centers on an impoverished brother and sister who will soon inherit a fortune. They are thwarted by a Snidely Whiplash-type scoundrel, his scheming partner and an opium dealer, and simultaneously pursued by their long-lost parents, who hope to re-establish the family.
In addition to the fanciful plot the play features many hallmarks of the time. Exposition-filled asides are delivered directly to the audience as others in the scene look on, oblivious; and one character simply dons glasses to disguise herself. The show was likely intended for spacious theaters where big gestures were prized and nuance was nonexistent. So much seems written and delivered in capital letters. Then underlined. Twice.

Erin Leigh Schmoyer*, Tod Mason*. Photo by Jacob J. Goldberg.

On the tiny Metropolitan stage this can come off as even more ham-handed. Lines like “Mother and I battle the world day and night to support our home in poverty. But if we are compelled to purchase riches at the cost of my sister’s honor, we’ll remain in rags all the rest of our lives” don’t exactly roll off the tongue. And that’s before the murder plot, the kidnapping, the chases and the onstage death. It would be entirely unsurprising if, in the middle of any scene, the villain tied the heroine to a set of railroad tracks and twirled his mustache as a speeding train approached.
Still, those are observations of the script, not criticisms of the production, which is unquestionably impressive. Though a few of the 13 cast members get lost in the commotion, most handle their work well. Paul Bomba and Erin Leigh Schmoyer as the brother and sister, and Ralph Petrarca as their father, are especially skillful. Alex Roe’s direction and Sidney Fortner’s costumes are praiseworthy.
Metropolitan Playhouse, which revisits works “that explore the American theatrical heritage,” has made an audacious choice, allowing viewers to ponder how theater has evolved and how status was portrayed. (“Class” is its theme this season.) At 2 hours 15 minutes, even those eager to see this forgotten work may tire. Yet since it is so rarely produced, this may be their only chance. There’s no question that “From Rags to Riches” is sort of a mess. But it can also be sort of fun.

By Erik Haagensen ; September 23, 2011

The 2011 Obie Award–winning Metropolitan Playhouse's 20th season is devoted to exploring the issue of class in America, that supposedly classless society. Kicking it off is artistic director Alex Roe's kicky production of Charles A. Taylor's "From Rags to Riches," a 1903 Broadway melodrama he wrote for his then-wife, the 19-year-old Laurette Taylor, launching her long stage career. The Taylors' vehicle is very much a commercial artifact of its day and a compendium of all the clichés that implies. It doesn't explore the issue of class so much as display it. Nevertheless, Roe's impish direction and a strong cast of 13 make the evening's two hours and 20 minutes fly by in a breeze of entertainment.

Our hero and heroine are teenagers Ned Nimble, a humble newsboy, and his older sister, Flossie, a counter girl at the lunch stand owned by the redoubtable Mother Murphy, the unofficial guardian of these two abandoned children. Ned is determined to find their lost mother, who gave them away as babes to take up with the suave but evil Prince Charlie, who, unbeknownst to her, framed her husband, Albert, for a crime that Charlie committed. The sexually voracious Charlie soon dumped her and moved on to a succession of greener pastures. Seeing the error of her ways, she assumed the pseudonym Gertrude Clark and went to work as a private nurse to Old Montgomery, a rich tycoon whose sole heir is his nephew, who just happens to be Charlie. Also in the mix are Flora Bradley, a former actor who is posing as Charlie's English wife to give him a veneer of respectability in his uncle's eyes, and the vicious Chinese Sam, a "dog doctor" whose offices are near Mother Murphy's stand.

The plot begins as Albert leaves prison and Charlie accidentally meets and develops a yen for Flossie, though unaware of who she really is. The incident-packed tale has all the standard melodramatic flourishes: lightning reversals of fortune, kidnappings, gun battles, impossible coincidences, endangered virginity, noble appeals to religion, freighted asides, and of course a happy ending. It's a show in which the villain actually says things like "I have you in my power" and "Bah!" and identity can be concealed behind a pair of dark glasses. Roe's smart and sly helming both honors and sends up the material, and while some comic rhythms had yet to fall into place at the show's third preview, I have no doubt the bumps will quickly be ironed out. Roe has also added a surprisingly effective conceit of having the characters sing the opening and closing lines of some scenes (and has written his own music to boot). These moments locate the honest emotion that audiences of the day would have found in the material, giving the show sweetness and heart.

It's easy to see how the perpetually cheerful and relentlessly naive Flossie could have been a star-making role, and snappy Erin Leigh Schmoyer goes straight for the goods in a thoroughly winning turn. Paul Bomba is an excellent Ned, wisely underplaying the character's strident morality while giving off a whiff of street tough in a performance eerily reminiscent of the young Martin Scorsese. Tod Mason is persuasively smooth and menacingly effete as the dastardly Charlie, while the commanding Claire Warden is brisk, bad, and very funny as Flora, his faux spouse. Everybody contributes good work, but other standouts include Carol Lambert's spunky Mother Murphy, Peter Judd's crusty Old Montgomery, Ingrid Saxon's wide-eyed Gertrude, and Erwin Falcon's raucous, political-correctness-be-damned Chinese Sam.

"From Rags to Riches" is not as interesting or resonant as some of the other plays Roe has unearthed, and its blatant anti-Chinese bigotry strikes some sour notes. But if you are in the market for a loving and intelligent evocation of a once-classic American art form, then hie thee to Metropolitan Playhouse.

Presented by and at Metropolitan Playhouse, 220 E. Fourth St., 2nd floor, NYC. Sept. 23–Oct. 16. Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (Additional performance Sat., Oct. 15, 3 p.m.) (212) 995-5302 or www.metropolitanplayhouse.org.