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New York Newsday

Theater Review

A FUN 'STARMITES' IN A FITTING HOME

by Aileen Jacobson

Back when "Starmites," a cheerful musical about teenagers and comic books, was on Broadway, it seemed wildly out of place - even though it did end up with six Tony nominations in the extremely sparse 1989 season.

Now, as the first offering of a brand-new theater in an unlikely location - a largely unrented new office-store complex in Farmingville - this unassuming futuristic rock musical, with sweet lessons about the awkwardness of growing up, has found a fitting home.

It's really a show for families and teenagers (which, as many parents know, is a state that begins these days at about age 8). It contains enough spoofs of the sci-fi genre to keep adults amused, and enough high-spirited music and action for all. The convoluted plot - about an earth girl who gets involved in an intergalactic adventure from a comic-book series - may escape very young children. It can easily escape adults, but that's part of the joke.

The production at the Victory Theater brims with charm and wit, if not always quite the polish of a theater that's chosen as it's motto "Broadway in Your Backyard."

Director Leonard Borovay, the theater's artistic director has cast the teenage parts with real teenagers, a few of them veterans of his previous production of "Starmites" at Sachem South High School, where he teaches. (Borovay is also associated with the Blackfriars Traveling Shakespeare Theater, probably Long Island's most offbeat, cutting-edge troupe, which will present "The Merry Wives Of Windsor," re-set at the Victory Theater Thursdays and Fridays starting this week.)

At times, this production looks like an accomplished high school show. But more often - and particularly when Michael Tester's boisterous choreography consumes the stage - it's happily suited to the material. In fact, I liked it better overall than the Broadway version.

Suzanne Mason, who plays Eleanor, the teenager tapped to save the comic-book universe, has a pretty voice and natural presence. P.J. Cirino, a talented, more experienced actor, is charming and assured as Spacepunk, leader of the Starmites, with whom Eleanor falls in love. The Starmites are also well-cast, with Scott Lewers projecting a particularly promising comic streak. Their adversary , the Banshees, a band of Amazon-like women, are played by supple dancers.

Only two elements are a bit disappointing. The role of Diva (dominatrix-leader of the Banshees, but a caring mother), performed on Broadway by a real diva named Sharon McNight, is played here by Jill Saunders, who has a pleasant voice and a saucy strut, but lacks the substance of a diva.

In an extraordinary performance on Broadway, Gabriel Barre turned the minor role of a creature called Trinkulus into a scene-stealing lizard impersonation that earned him a Tony nomination. It's unfair to expect a match from Dan Bova, but he's a bit too low-key until he gets to lead a rousing extravaganza late in the show, "The Cruelty Stomp."

Dean Pantorno leads a lively band just offstage, and the set, in tune with the theater's deconstructionist decor (an unfinished look, with gaps left behind murals and tiles to reveal wire and walls beneath), is a colorful pastiche of sci-fi cartoons over wire-mesh frames. Though modest, this first offering is an auspicious beginning for a new enterprise.