The Saline Reporter
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More than an efficient production
PUBLISHED: April 24, 2008
The story of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and their 12 children is all about time -- time saved and time lost.
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As industrial engineers, the husband and wife team were pioneers in the field of motion study and carried their pursuit for top efficiency into their well-run home.
In the play "Cheaper by the Dozen," currently being staged by the Saline Area Players this weekend, time appears in all its forms.
There is the present. The story is narrated by two of the children, Frank Gilbreth Jr. (Jeremy King) and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (Grace Walters), who together wrote the popular 1949 memoir on which the play is based. The pair stands downstage under a soft spot as they recall life in the Gilbreth household when they were children.
There is the past. As Frank and Ernestine reminisce, their memories fold over into the play's three acts, presenting the Gilbreth living room circa 1924, where all the action takes place over a span of six months or so.
And there is the future -- or the lack of it. Frank Gilbreth Sr. (Dean Klepaczyk), we learn early in the first act, has less than a year to live because of a bad heart.
"Time is too precious," he tells his family at one point.
On its surface, the play centers on the eldest daughter, Anne (Esther Jentzen), and her efforts to break out from under her father's conservative and efficiency-driven structures.
"Aren't you tired of looking like a freak?" she asks her younger sisters, Ernestine and Martha (Kelley Donnelly), when she reveals she has purchased a pair of silk stockings.
Jentzen plays Anne as the perfect ingÈnue, longing to attend dances, date boys and be popular at school.
This puts her in direct conflict with her father, of course, who sees dating boys as a waste of time. He has other ideas of how his children's time should be spent, such as learning French or German while taking their baths or mastering a method for multiplying two double-digit numbers.
In its production, the Saline Area Players cast hits most of the comedic moments dead-on -- and there are plenty. The children, played by Jentzen, King, Walters, Donnelly, Marshall Gardner (Bill), Sam Ozminkowski (Fred), Alexander Jasman (Dan), Christina Fosheim-Hoag (Lillian) and Ellie Falahee (Jackie), are a talented bunch of young actors who clearly have fun on stage and with one another.
As Anne's boyfriends, Lee Bracken as cheerleader Joe Scales and Kevin Anderson as Larry, are entertaining and mine some laughs of their own.
As Gilbreth, Klepaczyk pulls off the balance of being both strict with and indulging of his children, and Robin Fosheim (Lillian Gilbreth) is a fine foil for his obsessive idiosyncrasies.
The strong cast is rounded out by Janine Hutchinson as the cook, Mrs. Fitzgerald; Blair Driskell as Dr. Burton; and Ann Marie Mann, who milks the role of snooty Miss Brill for all its worth.
Ably directed by Saline Area Players veteran Mary Rumman, making her directorial debut, with a handsome set design by Leo Babcock and wonderful period costumes by Raynette Kempf and Patt Lambarth, "Cheaper by the Dozen" is fun family fare.
What is missing from the production is a palpable pathos that could transform "Cheaper by the Dozen" from merely a comedy into a powerful theater experience. Gilbreth learns early in the first act that he is likely to die within the year from a defective heart and the news drives him even more to get his house in order.
Suddenly, his observations about time management take on a broader, deeper meaning so that when Anne asks him, "What if I do waste one afternoon?" the question should reverberate.
Near the end of the play when Gilbreth declares with some satisfaction, "It's like the whole house is getting to run itself," it's evident he has been preparing his family to continue on without him.
It's not until late in the third act that we see the pent-up awareness of the short time he has left emerge from the characters.
In the end, "Cheaper by the Dozen" is about more than just a father's fascination with time efficiency.
It is about the good use of one's time, however short it may be.
Performances are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee at the Liberty School theater on North Ann Arbor Street. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students through high school, and seniors 65 and older. Tickets can be reserved in advance by calling 677-3727 or bought at the door.
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