Mister Snickers of New York City tickets

The puppetry added a delightful and moving dimension to an earnest and charming play; the actors' performances and singers also enriched the production.

Mr. Snickers of New York City written by Michael Raimondi, directed by Abigail Zealey Bess and Josh Tyson from the Equity Showcase at Urban Stages: In the short interval between their wonderful production at The Wild Project and their Equity Showcase at Urban Stages the creatives made several changes to the story and production in an attempt to tighten the show. The result is a much tighter show, although some of the changes are more successful than others. The biggest change is the initial meeting between Matthew Barbieri (Kenon Veno), Rick Bowman (Nickholas James Reilly) and New Jersey Dog Rescuer Dawn Pollack (Sharon Wheatley). Where originally Dawn was portrayed as a bible thumping, homophobic woman, she is now a woman who simply does not like Rick while immediately accepting Matthew. That frees the show from the lack of explanation for why she deals with the gay couple at all, but more importantly frees Matthew from the lack of explanation on why he would be willing to deal with a woman who acts exactly like his estranged parents. The change closes a major gap. The reference to Rori Nogee's Olivia Olivier being gay is also no longer in the production. It is a minor change, since there is nothing in the show that would indicate whether she is gay or straight, but it does allow the audience to speculate on why she is so supportive of the dysfunctional, alcoholic, and oft times abusive Matthew. A change that didn't work was dropping the reference to how old Mr. Snickers is when he dies. That reference is important because it provides the Matthew the time to recover from his alcoholism and dysfunctional behavior. Also, what did not work as well as one would have thought it would have was picking up the pace of the show. The stage manager (Taryn Uho) made extraordinarily fast scene changes. Normally this would be a very good thing, but Mister Snickers really needs pace more than speed. The rapid scene movement sometimes did not allow the meaning of a scene to fully register. The singing of Rori Nagee and Sharon Wheatley was much richer at Urban Stages than it was at the Wild Project and the band seemed much more involved. Ultimately, Mr. Snickers is still written and directed to be a tearjerker, and it accomplishes that goal. And the final melancholic scene brilliantly tugs at that audience's heartstrings causing many to tear up. Mr. Snickers has the advantage of intermittent good music and most importantly an endearing dog puppet under the control of an amazing puppeteer in Mecca Akbar. It is an inherently commercial piece.

Heartfelt, personal story performed well by a great cast. Uneven direction and script.