A fellow critic confessed to having little use for the proliferation of current plays with nasty people doing ugly things. “It would be perfectly fine for me,” he sighed, “to watch five hours of a family just being nice to each other.” While I can’t go that far, I must admit to a sense of pleasure at encountering a play in which essentially decent people—who, nonetheless, have problems—try to get through life by hurting each other as little as possible.
High school pals, but not sweethearts, Katie (Michelle O’Steen) and Jimmy (John Kozeluh) would practice for dance contests and rap about their social lives. That was 40 years ago. Now Kate (Ginger Prince) is comfortably but numbly married to a stiff-backed pilot (James Congdon), while Jim (Jack Davidson), an unemployed actor, negotiates with his ex-wife (Pamela Burrell) over child support and the upbringing of their teenage son. Out of contact for four decades, Kate and Jim renew their acquaintance and find themselves flirting, not so much with adultery, but with running away from their disappointing lives.
Eventually, author P.J. Barry throws Jim a fairly believable character twist that neither adds nor detracts from the play’s light, entertaining tone. Shifting between past and present is an attractive concept for artists and has produced such complex works as Sondheim/Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along and Michael Apted’s “7 Up” film series.
After the Dancing in Jericho doesn’t dig as deeply — the present-day scenes in act one feel especially perfunctory — but, importantly, we like its people. As friends, potential lovers, and certainly dancers, Katie and Jimmy make a winsome pair. Their older selves are neither successes nor flat-out failures, and they treat life accordingly.
Some of that credit goes to the cast. Michelle O’Steen and John Kozeluh, though slightly old for their parts, exude much charm. Jack Davidson’s an agreeable Jim, Ginger Prince an even better Kate, and James Congdon and Pamela Burrell, as the terse pilot and harried ex-wife, are no less commendable. As director, Barry smoothly handles the numerous time transitions.
Whether the lives of Katie and Jimmy after they danced in a Jericho high school can be viewed as tragic or heartening depends on our acceptance of fate. In his gentle fashion, P.J. Barry shows how people grow into their true selves, and how that’s not such a terrible thing.
