Cast has ‘girard’s nude’ well covered

By Katherine Beeson

Published Sept. 14, 2019

Kettle Moraine Playhouse and Theater RED opened its 2019 season with the world premiere production of the musical “Girard’s Nude.” The show was written by local playwright Kristin Bayer with music and lyrics by local artist Deanna Gibeau. The show was based on the novel of the same name written by Nancy Sweetland and is directed by Christopher Elst.  

A famous artist has a showing in New York City in 1953 but is a no-show. Turns out he is hiding out in a small town in Pennsylvania and has a passion to begin painting voluptuous nudes in the style of Peter Paul Rubens. He encounters a housewife (“my angel”) and convinces her to pose for him. She is a frustrated suburban woman married to a man who spends his free time golfing (She sings that she wants “Some Life in My Life”) and decides to say yes. Though trying to keep her modeling a secret, rumors are spread. Will being a muse mean the end to her marriage? 

Jovon Serrano plays wife Ethel Evans. Although she channels Lucy Ricardo just a bit too much and her voice tends to get just a bit too high, Serrano very convincingly portrays a 1950s woman with a lot of time on her hands and is both excited and flustered to become immortalized in oils. Peter Gibeau as husband Ernest Evans is great as a man completely unaware of his wife’s boredom and her need of something outside of the hum-drum minutia of keeping his socks in the proper order. 

Ralph Garcia shines as Girard. This role could easily slip into French-artist caricature but director Elst keeps the character real and quite endearing. Another tiny part worth mentioning is Nichole Kivela as nosy landlady Mrs. Mustoff. She takes money in lieu of references and then “overcleans” the window so she can spy into the artist’s apartment. Very cute bit. 

The set is very simple with tables, bed, sofas, etc. coming down and turning from the walls, as well as picture frames standing in for actual paintings. These work well, but the most effective set pieces were the very long white cloths hung from each side of the stage and used to drape around Ethel “posing” nude. The set was created by Rich Hawthorne 

This is a very small theater seating roughly 65 – a converted church with a tiny balcony – yet I felt the actors do need mics as some song lyrics were just a bit too hard to understand. 

As far as bringing this book to the stage, I think it has real potential to shine -- as a play. (I would, however, eliminate the daughter, son-in-law and baby as they do not really move the story forward.) While a few songs do work – I especially enjoyed the landlady’s ditty “Minding My Own Beeswax” and a few other songs like “Forever Ernest” – some just seem to be, well, just there. The song at the end about putting it all out there and following your dreams with the rhyming word moonbeams was just too saccharine and didn’t really fit. Ethel was not following her dreams – an opportunity just fell into her lap -- and to suddenly introduce a new twist about inspiring other artists seems to come out of left field. As the reporters were stymied in their efforts to learn the identity of the model as the show closes, a song about this might have served as a better ending. 

The Kettle Moraine area strongly supports its local theater and artists and the tiny space was almost sold-out.  

“Girard’s Nude” runs through Sept. 22, 2019. There was no contact or ticket information in the program. The theater’s website is kmplayhouse.com and that may be a way to get tickets.