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By Georgia Wab worth
Harvey, the Rappahannock Players’ fall production, opened Friday in their new playhouse location at Wakefield School in Huntly. And despite a sparse and lukewarm audience (a cold audience in fact—the capricious fall weather proved too much for an unheated building) the cast gave a charming performance and won over the crowd before the end of the first act. This play has the distinction of having won a Pulitzer Prize and being widely popular—a rather unusual combination. Seeing it again reminds us of the reasons for its broad and lasting appeal. The gentle, eccentric, slightly unbalanced Elwood P. Dowd is a classic character whose “deranged” behavior finally is perceived by the other characters (and the audience) as preferable to “normal" behavior.
The satirization of the psychiatric profession still sounds current, and the funny lines—including some subtle and some not-so-subtle double entendres—are cleverly written and still very funny.
New York audiences are packing the theatres to watch revivals of vintage plays and musicals such as The Little Foxes, My Fair Lady, A Taste of Honey and Camelot. No matter that there have been movie versions. T.V. versions and T.V. reruns —they continue to stand on their own. Harvey stands right there with them.
Because Harvey himself never appears in the play, the role of Elwood P. Dowd is crucial. John Hall is a terrific Elwood. Perhaps the hardest thing about trying to be Elwood P. Dowd is trying not to be Jimmy Stewart. To borrow from the macho
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