'Red Herring' Actors Have Multiple Roles (2003)

By Maryann Gogniat Eidemiller FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, August 7, 2003

In the dictionary, a "red herring" is something that diverts attention from something else. The phrase originated with the practice of escaped convicts setting out stinky fish to throw bloodhounds off their trail.

On stage, "Red Herring" is one laugh after another.

"When I saw it at the City Theatre in Pittsburgh, my stomach literally hurt from laughing so hard," said Brad Dell, who is directing the production at Apple Hill Playhouse, in Delmont. "It's one of the funniest and smartest comedies ever written. It's not a stupid comedy at all, but very smart and witty."

"Red Herring" previews tonight and runs through Aug. 23. Six cast members play 18 characters in 24 scenes that change as quickly as the actors shed and add costumes to become someone else.

The story takes place in the 1950s with a plot that involves Russians, spies and murder. It's a love story, too, for three couples.

"Michael Hollinger, a relatively new playwright, published it in 2000 and the latest version was in 2002," Dell said. "He really wanted the focus of the play to be beyond the spy comedy, and to be about marriage."

The plot opens with Maggie the cop investigating a murder that happened on a Boston pier.

"She's trying to track down the killer, who she was married to at one time," said Terri Nelson, of Jeannette, who plays the role. "He had conned her, and she's just this average person who was taken advantage of, and she has a job to do. She's in love, but doesn't tell him about her previous marriage, and everything goes wrong."

Maggie works with FBI Agent Frank Keller, played by Ken Solomon, of Pittsburgh, who also is cast as a priest and as Major Hartwell.

"The scene is in the Pacific and they're doing the first test of the H-bomb," Solomon said. "It's a military parody."

Jack Goodstein, of Uniontown, is Andrei, a Russian fisherman who is forced to spy because he thinks that his wife is being held prisoner in Russia. Meanwhile, he has an affair with Mrs. Cravitz, his landlady.

"She's very wisecracking and an awful lot of fun to play," Kathleen O'Halloran, of Irwin, said. "I also play Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Van Nostrand, the bridal shop owner who is very forceful and has trained her husband well."

Goodstein switches roles to play that hen-pecked character, as well as the FBI agent's partner and a British scientist.

"I play a corpse, too, which is difficult," he joked.

Katy Wayne is cast as Lynn McCarthy, the naive, determined and fictional daughter of Sen. Joe McCarthy. She plans to marry James, a Soviet spy played by Bob Capanna, of Greensburg. Wayne also has a small part as a clerk in the marriage license bureau.

"She's purely a comic character who's a little bitter and actually against marriage," Wayne said.

Capanna switches roles several times, but Nelson is always Maggie.

"She's the anchor, the stable one who's trying to hold everything together and keep things on the right track," Nelson said.

Dell, who lives near Greensburg, is impressed with the cast.

"They are incredibly talented and wonderful to work with," he said.

Capanna has done local commercials; Nelson is a veteran of local stage, and Solomon is theater director at Brentwood High School, where he teaches social studies. O'Halloran, a teacher and speech and debate coach at Norwin High School, has directed children's theater at the playhouse. Wayne runs Showcase Productions, an acting studio in Butler, and Goodstein has been in movies filmed in the area. He most recently was a newspaper editor in "Captain Blasto," which hasn't been released yet.

Dell is a graduate student studying directing at Western Illinois University.

"He's only 22 years old and he's absolutely brilliant," Capanna said. "He just finished 'Evita' at Apple Hill, and he got excellent reviews. He is amazing."

Steve Schwall, of Indiana, Pa., designed the set that moves through 18 different locations.

"The most important scenes take place on the fish pier in Boston and, when you look at the entire set, it's just a pier with many different levels for each of the smaller scenes," Dell said. "An area of that pier becomes an office or a morgue and, just by bringing in a sheet and throwing it over a crate, you now have a bedroom."

Costumer Tina Lepidi-Stewart, of Irwin, provided the 1950s clothes that create the multiple characters.

"It's an intimate show and the audience will get to know the characters a lot more," Dell said about the six actors creating so many roles. "This is going to be a lot of fun."