Pleasant “Lipitones” have sitcom vibe.
Deep in the resume of playwright Mark St. Germain lies the fact that he was a writer and creative consultant for hit television comedy “The Cosby Show.” This will become important in just a moment; bear with me.
St. Germain’s stage work has had several outings locally in recent seasons — “Freud’s Last Session” at Mad Cow Theatre, and “The Best of Enemies” and “Dancing Lessons” at Orlando Shakespeare Theater.
In those plays, St. Germain tackles heavy issues with a light touch. In a way, he’s doing the same thing in “The Fabulous Lipitones,” co-written with John Markus. But in that comedy, onstage in Maitland in a warmhearted if slightly jittery Theater at the J production, the touch is so light it almost floats away.
“Lipitones” has the tone of a 1980s TV sitcom: Think of one of those “very special episodes” where a group of beloved but rather one-dimensional characters learn something important. “The Golden Girls” comes to mind. Or — a-ha! — “The Cosby Show.”
In “The Fabulous Lipitones,” a member of a Midwestern barbershop quartet dies, leaving the fellow singers to find a replacement before their big competition. The remaining trio spend as much time bickering as harmonizing. There’s irascible Phil, nerdy Wally and wishy-washy Howard.
The middle-aged white men are surprised, to say the least, when Bob shows up to audition for the group — and he’s wearing a turban. Bob hails from somewhere near the Af- ghanistan-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border region, and Phil assumes he’s Muslim.
He’s not, in what feels like a cop-out by the playwrights. Instead, he’s a good-natured Sikh. In another cop-out, there’s some unexplored moral ambiguity about his status in the U.S. But the story’s focus is on acceptance of those who are different at first glance but may be more like us than we think.
Director Kerry A. Giese has the setup-punch-line rhythm of sitcoms down pat, and his actors know how to deliver a comic retort or sarcastic remark to good effect. Even when the jokes are on the crusty side, they land. The barbershop numbers flow in and out of the story with ease, and the men sound particularly good on “A Bird in a Gilded Cage.”
Bob Brandenburg believably sputters and rants as intolerant Phil to great effect, while Brett P. Carson is reliably solid as romantically and technologically inept Wally. Bob Hay is a sympathetic Howard, but it’s Giovanni Barrio as Bob who really puts the heart in this heartfelt production.