Friday, October 24, 2003

SMT journeys ‘Around the World’

By LAURA STEWART
NEWS-JOURNAL FINE ARTS WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH — The challenges are steep, but Phileas Fogg (Jay Douglas) once again makes it all the way around the world in time to win his bet in “Around the World in 80 Days,” the Seaside Music Theater production that runs through Nov. 2.

Still, it’s not just a speed that seemed breakneck in 1873, the year French fantasy writer Jules Verne created his most famous fiction, it’s also one that led Fogg and his manservant Passepartout (Gary Cadwallader) into one slapstick situation after another.

The version director Lester Malizia chose for presentation at SMT Downtown, 176 N. Beach St., is by Mark Brown, who emphasizes the wackier aspects of trying to race around the world using one primitive vehicle after another — train, freighter, sleigh, elephant, but no balloon.

Along the way, the eccentric Fogg and his crew are followed by Detective Fix (Derrick Peterson), who suffers from the mistaken belief that Fogg has robbed the Bank of England. Malizia saw Brown’s new adaptation in its 1999 workshop version at Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival, but also was familiar with other work by the Los Angeles playwright and actor.

Among them are a play Brown co-wrote, “Poe: Deep Into That Darkness Peering,” and his performances on stage in “The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shakspr (abridged), “The Taming of the Shrew,” in the movies “Out of Sight” and “Holy Man” and on television in “Ally McBeal” and other series.

Also in the cast are Judith Cornell and Scott Gilmore.

Subscription tickets to Seaside Music Theater’s threeshow series (which also includes Cole Porter’s “You Never Know” and Ted Swindley’s “Honky Tonk Angels”) are $69 for adults, $36 for college students, $24 for youth.