Theatre in Review: Welcome to the Big Dipper (York Theatre Company/Theatre at St. Jean)Banish all thoughts of outer space: The Big Dipper is a hotel and nightclub on the verge of closing forever until it gets a surge in business thanks to a monster blizzard. The extreme weather afflicting the greater Buffalo area forces Joan, the owner, to accommodate a guest list only the authors of an airheaded musical could love: a glum group of Amish returning from a wedding in Canada; the "Sirens of Syracuse," a gaggle of cross-dressing men; and Carly, their trans choreographer. ("We actually made it to Toronto and won second place at the 'Ladies of the Lake' talent show, right behind 'The Notre Dames' of Montreal," one of the Sirens boasts.) Joan, who has one foot out the door, isn't happy about hosting this collection of stereotypes. It's easy to sympathize. With its Love Boat-ready plot -- Amish! Drag queens! Trans gals! -- Welcome to the Big Dipper offers an endless parade of kooky, implausible situations. In an unguarded moment, Carly kisses Jacky, a married member of the Sirens, her PDA caught on camera by a TV news crew; Jacky panics because his wife somehow doesn't know that he runs around performing in drag. The Amish teen Rebecca, whose rumspringa has been a flop, wants to break away from the old ways and become a veterinarian, upsetting her widowed father, Amos. (Rebecca also catches the eye of Dez, Joan's son, who has a scholarship to USC.) Joan, a former jazz singer now mired in debt, is pressured to sell her hotel to a corporation represented by Bonnie, an aspiring real estate shark; Bonnie swears the building will be renovated into a retirement community events center but the real plan is to turn it into a fast-food joint with the un-delicious name Blisterburger. Plot enough for you? No? Okay: Carly worships a statue of Frida Kahlo ("Praise to Frida, praise her now/Praise her mustache, praise her brow"); Rebecca, who spends one scene hiding from her father in a closet, is obsessed with Annie Edison Taylor, the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel; and Mr. Sapper, the hotel's more-or-less permanent resident, slinks around with a mysterious package -- a health report? Government documents? -- that will provide Welcome to the Big Dipper with its deus ex machina. The book, by Catherine Filloux and John Daggett, based on a play by Filloux, is, according to the script, "based on a true event." We'll have to take their word for that. Alas, there's no room at the inn for wit or character development: Running ninety minutes, the musical has just enough time for each character to take center stage, announce his/her/their problem, and get off. The Carly-Jacky plot is a nonstarter -- he only cares about his drag habit being exposed -- and the show soft-pedals Carly's trans status to the point of near invisibility. Rebecca's fascination with Taylor, the barrel diver, is bizarre, given that the real-life character's dubious achievement was matched with a sordid history of penury and personal betrayals. (See Michael John LaChiusa's rather better musical, Queen of the Mist, for a more accurate portrait.) Bonnie frantically imposes hard-and-fast deadlines on Joan as if they weren't snowbound in a city where business activity has ground to a halt. And the jokes: The African American Joan cracks, "The Dipper has been in the red so long I've forgotten that black is beautiful." Bonnie bitterly notes, "I've hit the glass ceiling so many times, I need Windex for hairspray." Joan, confused by the idea of Amish people traveling, says, "I thought you folks don't drive." "We hired a Mennonite," Rebecca replies. Bonnie (again), complaining about her enforced stay at the Dipper, says, "They put me in a room called the Home Sweet Home Suite. I feel like Martha Stewart's love child." Let's leave Martha out of it, shall we? Jimmy Roberts' songs (additional lyrics by Daggett) are technically solid without standing out; then again, there's not much anyone could do with such thin material. DeMone Seraphin, who directed and plays Mr. Sapper, keeps the actors coming and going but the press performance I attended suffered from a slightly under-rehearsed quality. The standouts include the warm, big-voiced Debra Walton as Joan; the appealing Christian Magby as Dez, and Mia Pinero, radiant as Rebecca. As Amos, Robert Cuccioli has little to do besides stare into the distance and make stern pronouncements although he shows off his still-pristine voice in "Carriages," a wistful lament about the changes wrought by time. The gifted Jennifer Byrne does her best to wrestle the one-note role of Bonnie to a standstill but her solo, "Go With What Ya Got," fails to inject any pizzazz into the proceedings. Brian Pacelli's set design, consisting mostly of movable doorways that figure in Ashly Marinelli's musical staging, leaves the stage feeling oddly empty, but his projections -- of snowfall, Niagara Falls, various wallpaper patterns, and breaking TV news reports -- help to take up the slack. Kristen Page's lighting, Janine Loesch's costumes, and Julian Evans' sound are acceptable. Admittedly, the action becomes touching, if no more believable, near the end, thanks to a resolution that invokes -- of all things -- the Underground Railroad. The number "Bones of the House" at least sends the audience out on an upbeat, inspirational note. But the trouble with Welcome to the Big Dipper is that it is all concept and no execution, a silly synthetic with little connection to reality. Pray for an early thaw. --David Barbour 
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