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Friday, March 31, 2000

Molly Brown's unsinkable spirit at playhouse
Large cast tells of rags-to-riches socialite and 'Titanic' survivor
By Paige Ross
Caller-Times Arts & Entertainment Writer

David Adame/Caller-Times

Molly Brown, played by Deborah Miget, screams for the sheriff during rehearsal of a scene from the Harbor Playhouse production of 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown.'

You can't keep a good woman down. That seems to be the theme of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," Meredith Willson's 1960 musical based on the rags-to-riches life of Molly Tobin Brown, a poor Irish-American woman from Missouri who became a fabulously wealthy Denver socialite.
   "It shows you can do it," said Deborah Miget,, who portrays Brown in a Harbor Playhouse production of the show opening tonight. "You can get out of a small town and realize your dreams."
   The story moves from Leadville, Colo., portraying Brown as a saloon singer, inviting miners to "Belly Up to the Bar, Boys," to showing her being snubbed by moneyed Denver society after her miner husband strikes it rich. She flees to Paris to acquire some culture and entertains crowned Europeans, who she invites back to Denver to poke the eyes of the snobs who hurt her. It's a fiasco, but before it's all over she rediscovers the fidelity of her husband, who stood beside her while her head was turned by the lure of social position. Upset that she may have driven him away, Brown books passage on the Titanic to come back to the states. Fortunately "Unsinkable" Brown has quite a rowing arm.
   Dreams at home
   "She's a survivor," said Miget, who sang the role of Linda Cole in "Red, Hot and Cole" at Warren Theatre last fall. "At first it was money that drove her. She didn't realize what her dreams were until she was very rich and decided that that didn't make her happy. She realizes that she wants to go back to a dumpy little town and live with the guy she loves."
   "She goes from being a saloon singer to thinking that she's made it big," Miget said. "Then she runs a salon in Paris, (later) growing up and realizing her dream in the end is being with the guy she loves and it doesn't matter where it is or what kind of house they live in.
   "She wants outward acceptance in the beginning," Miget said, "and at the end the only person she needs acceptance from is herself."
   Creating the varied sets and making them move quickly from scene to scene has been keeping director Ross Wilmeth more than busy.
   "But the biggest challenge has been taking some of our big, strong volunteers and turning them into miners," Wilmeth said, "and keeping the energy high through all the singing and dancing."
   Large-scale production
   Even with a cast of 29, the community theater troupe is stretching, with many actors in multiple roles.
   "One gentleman who's a drunken piano player is a butler in Denver high society in another scene, then a French maitre d' later. It's all part of the fun," Wilmeth said. "A bartender in Leadville plays a duke in France, then goes back to being a drunken miner."
   As the story moves from location to location, the distinctly American heroine shifts focus.
   "Ultimately (this show) is not so much 'rags-to-riches' or 'love conquers all,' but more about realizing that if you are true to yourself, life will be true to you," Wilmeth said.

   What: "The Unsinkable Molly Brown"
   When: 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday through April 15
   Where: Harbor Playhouse, No. 1 Bayfront Park
   Cost: $15
   More Info: 888-7469.


Arts & Entertainment writer Paige Ross can be reached at 886-3753 or by e-mail at rossp@caller.com

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