'The Ark' is fun despite a few flaws

THE ARK, Provo Theatre Company, through July 10 (379-0600). Running time: two hours (one intermission).

PROVO — There's no question that "The Ark" is a good deal more seaworthy than when it started several years ago.

The characters are more colorful. The whole story is more upbeat. The costuming is bright and unique. The set is intriguing — built very much as one would imagine the inside of the biblical ark might appear.

The choreography is lively, and there are a number of added sequences that take this show to a more entertaining level with the addition of Shem's invention of checkers, Scrabble and basketball, and Sariah's early morning aerobics.

In fact, the entire first half is very encouraging.

The show moves along at a rapid pace and gives one a humorous, albeit irreverent inside look at what might have happened in Noah's family as they struggled to understand and follow his direction from God, which at first blush looks so misguided.

It's fun to see Eliza, played by Laurie Harrop-Purser, struggle with caring for the many creatures and tasks that go with running an ark full of elephants, zebras, birds and boa constrictors.

Sariah, played by Marcie Jacobsen, is great as a self-indulgent, vain woman whose chief concern is that after 10 days at sea everyone has seen her best outfits.

Egyptus, played by Lita Little Giddins, is a novelty as Ham's black wife, who actually is more spiritually in tune with Noah and the family than her husband.

All of the vocals are strong and each of the cast members does a credible job in his/her individual roles.

However, this show still has a few problems as it struggles somewhere between trying to be another "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" or "Fiddler on the Roof."

Several times it feels as if the show wants to be an Andrew Lloyd Webber clone of "Joseph" with some cowboy dancing.

Noah has a familiar conversation with the Lord that seems like "Fiddler's" "On the Other Hand" routine, and there's a bit of "Do You Love Me?" in the Noah and Eliza bedtime conversation, with periodic energetic praising of the Almighty, punctuated by doses of earthy reality.

Then, particularly in the second half, the problems that originated in the first draft of this show resurface. The songs — there are 22 — lack distinction, and several in a row sound like "finale" numbers long before the actual finale.

The problems between the three couples who are bored and frustrated with confinement — and with each other — are too easily solved by the birth of a single (stuffed) baby lamb.

The long-standing feud between father Noah and his son Ham comes to a crisis point but then is simplistically and unbelievably resolved with the appearance of a dove with an olive branch in his beak.

It's really hard to make the transitions and keep up with the shifts.

Overall, this is an entertaining effort and certainly one worth seeing. But is it ready for a New York debut in front of a cynical and critical worldly audience? Probably not yet.

---

E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com