Josefa Lantenay (Zehra Abdi), Paul Sevigne (Jeff Carpenter) and Benjamin Beaurevers (Tom Weyburn) in a scene from the Heights Players' production of "A Shot in the Dark."

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When Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s "The Front Page" opened on Broadway in 1928, the ’20s were still roaring and Prohibition was still keeping bootleggers in business. At that time, any plays set in a metropolitan pressroom where rough-and-tumble reporters encounter gangsters, corrupt city officials and prostitutes would be applauded for its gritty realism and authentic characters.

Indeed, Hecht and MacArthur both drew liberally from their own experience in the newspaper business. Today, however, when journalists are considered part of the well-dressed, well-heeled, well-educated elite, "The Front Page" may seem to be an old relic filled with dated dialogue and improbable plotting. But it also can be deemed a venerable treasure that only becomes more valuable with age.

The Gallery Players’ production is just such a well-polished gem.

The play is directed by Jose Zayas and stars Ale Weinberg, who has more energy than the bunny of battery fame, and enough swagger and style to keep the play perpetually hopping.

Weinberg plays the wily Hildy Johnson, a sleazy tabloid reporter who has decided to quit his job on the Herald-Examiner so he can marry Peggy Grant (the charming Sheila Morgan) and move to New York City where a job awaits him in an advertising agency.

Peter Levine is excellent as Hildy’s slimy editor, Walter Burns, who will go to any length to keep his star reporter. Richard Brundage plays Earl Williams, an escaped anarchist facing the hangman’s noose. And Erin Carey is Mollie Malloy, the empathetic woman of easy virtue whose heart Williams has won. Carey is a one-woman whirlwind of funny fury who engages and delights with her determination and indignation.

Despite Hildy’s original intention to visit the pressroom only to say goodbye to his buddies and the fact that his future wife and mother-in-law (Sylvia Norman) are waiting for him in a taxicab, the inveterate reporter cannot resist getting the scoop on a great story that just about falls into his lap, or helping his editor fabricate a story where none exists.

Hildy makes one halfhearted attempt to escape when he borrows money from a local hood, Diamond Louis (Mark Schwentker who slips into the role like a pistol into its holster). Amid the pleas of his fiance, the demands of her mother, the machinations of his editor and the mayor (Barry Simpson), the complaints of Bensinger, the germ-obsessed Tribune reporter (the very funny Harley Diamond), and the noisy gang of reporters equally eager to get a scoop, he frenetically pursues the story with the banner headline.

Costume designer Sarah Haman has accumulated the largest collection of double-breasted suits and fedoras ever seen by an audience since "The Untouchables" went off the air. These dour, sometimes dapper men walk in and out of a pressroom that Jessica Kaplan has re-created with a roll-top desk, a lazy overhead fan, and an array of old-fashioned desks, chairs and telephones.

"The Front Page" begins with the reporters sitting around a table playing cards even before the house lights fade, and the action doesn’t stop until the bad guys are foiled and truth triumphs. But the last laugh is saved for the audience.

The original Broadway production was directed by George Kaufman, who later became one of America’s most famous playwrights. In 1969-1970, a revival featuring Robert Ryan, Bert Convy, Helen Hayes and Dody Goodman played at the Ethel Barrymore. Most recently, "The Front Page" was revived at the Vivian Beaumont in 1985, directed by Jerry Zaks and starring Richard Thomas and John Lithgow.

In "His Girl Friday" (1940), filmmaker Howard Hawks adapted the role of Hildy, the no-nonsense star reporter, for a woman, Rosalind Russell, who’s pursued by her conniving editor (Cary Grant) - who also happens to be her old flame. Sparks, and witty banter, fly as he tries to stop the wedding and get her back on the staff. What a history!

"The Front Page" is an old war-horse that hopefully will never be put out to pasture - certainly not while there are talented companies like the Gallery Players who are willing to get in the saddle.

’A Shot in the Dark’

Josefa Lantenay, a pretty young parlor maid in the home of Dominique and Benjamin Beaurevers, is found naked and unconscious, a gun in her hand, next to her dead lover. The victim is an allegedly hot-blooded Spaniard, Miguel, chauffeur to the Beaurevers.

"A Shot in the Dark," now revived by the Heights Players under the direction of Jim McNulty, is a delightful murder mystery more likely to elicit laughter than fear. Adapted by Harry Kurnitz from the play "L’Idiote" by Marcel Achard, it opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre in 1961. The cast featured such notable actors as Julie Harris, William Shatner, Gene Saks, Louis Troy and Walter Matthau, who received a Tony for Best Supporting Actor for the role of Benjamin Beaurevers. But despite this stellar cast, the show ran for less than a year, closing in September 1962. Perhaps its humor was just too French for an American audience.

Paul Sevigne (Jeff Carpenter), an honest but bungling magistrate newly arrived in Paris from Lyon, leads the investigation, aided by his enthusiastic but even more incompetent assistant, Morestan (Frank Guerrasio).

Guerrasio, who performs frequently with the Narrows Community Theater, most notably as Einstein in "Arsenic and Old Lace," and Harry in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," supplies most of the humor in his scenes with Carpenter. He’s the guy with the exaggerated gestures, ridiculous poses and foolish ideas, while Carpenter appears to be the straight man. Although this might have worked for Abbott and Costello or Martin and Lewis, it’s not clear that this is what Kurnitz had in mind. Guerrasio exhausts himself working for two while Carpenter walks through his part, oblivious to its comic elements.

Just when the audience is trying to decide whether or not they’re watching a comedy, Josefa (Zehra Abdi) walks on stage. Abdi is a third-year law student who is making her Heights Players debut. What a find! She captures the stage and steals the show.

Abdi has clearly mastered the art of pouting, flirting and delivering an exuberant outburst or a blatant nonsequitur. She makes it easy to see why Sevigne might defend her even though he risks his career when he casts suspicion on the Beaurevers, a well-heeled, well-respected couple. And she makes it obvious why he might risk even the wrath of his attractive but meddling wife, Madame Antoinette Sevigne (the very able Marla Yost), who is not unaware of Josefa’s attractions.

But has Josefa so enthralled Benjamin Beaurevers (who it turns out was also her lover) that he has murdered the chauffeur in a jealous rage? Josefa changes her story as easily as the wind changes direction. One moment she’s insisting she is innocent. The next she is insisting that she, and not the blameless Benjamin, is the murderer.

Beaurevers (Tom Weyburn) is a sophisticated and wealthy banker who has married Dominique (Marie Gay Thomas) for her pedigree. Weyburn with his sleek hair, beautifully tailored gray suit and gray tie, and Thomas with her prissy smile and precise step are a perfect pair and a wonderful parody on the European upper classes. They never appear on stage together, but there are ample hints of how the sparks might fly if they did.

Just to keep the heat up, the energetic Ed Healy appears sporadically as Lablache, a messenger for the big bosses who are always ready to wield the crushing blow that will send Sevigne back to Lyon.

"A Shot in the Dark" is a good, entertaining farce that will lift your spirits in troubled times. Put down the newspaper, turn off the TV and enjoy yourself.

The Heights Players production of "A Shot in the Dark" plays through April 14, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm at 26 Willow Place at State Street in Brooklyn Heights. Tickets are $10, seniors and students $8. For reservations call (718) 237-2752.

The Gallery Players production of "The Front Page" runs through April 14, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm at 199 14th St. at Fourth Avenue in Park Slope. Tickets are $15, $12 seniors and children under 12. For reservations, call (718) 595-0547.

©2002 The Brooklyn Paper