Thursday, March 11, 1999
Young star adapts to 'Tavern'
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
he Cincinnati Enquirer
It is the sound that still strikes fear in the hearts of middle-aged Roman Catholics who attended a parochial school: Click-ick.
The sharp metallic sound echoes through the decades, although it was nothing more than a slight pressure from a nun's two fingers pushing together the halves of a small metal instrument. Classrooms full of kids were paralyzed by that sound.
The clicker plays a major supporting role in Over the Tavern, Tom Dudzick's play about growing up Catholic in a blue-collar Buffalo neighborhood in the 1950s. It opens today at Playhouse in the Park.
Tavern is a measure of how times have changed. The first question Shane Michael Murphy asked at the first rehearsal was, “What's a clicker?”
Shane, 13, who lives in Park Hills and is an eighth-grader at Mercy Montessori, had some other culture shocks to overcome. He plays the central role of Rudy Pazinski, the bright-eyed, comedy-writing kid who starts to question the value of parochial education as practiced 40 years ago.
Rudy's big thing is an ongoing impersonation of Ed Sullivan.
Who?
Shane believes his grandparents had mentioned Ed Sullivan to him at some point in his young life, but he needed a videotape to learn the TV variety show host's speech pattern and mannerisms.
To study Rudy's relationship with his father, tavern owner Chet, Shane was advised to watch Robert De Niro in This Boy's Life.
Overall, Shane thinks it's better to be a kid now, although he does say what surprised him most is not how different things are, but how much is the same. Like Rudy's older brother Eddie constantly trying to smuggle girlie magazines into the house. “Guys don't change that much,” Shane says.
This is Shane's professional debut. He likes to write, draw and play basketball. He's a brown belt in karate. “I used to collect comic books, but I've moved on.”
Shane did have a chance to see how the clicker works in early Tavern rehearsals. As actors were learning their lines, director Terence Lamude would click away whenever anyone got dialogue wrong.
IF YOU GO
• What: Over the Tavern
• When: 7 p.m. today, 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday through April 9.
• Where: Playhouse in the Park Marx Theatre, Eden Park.
• Tickets: $23-$38 depending on day and seat location. Any unreserved tickets are half-price day of show between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the Playhouse box office or Tower Tix in Tower Place Mall, downtown. 421-3888.
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