Kenny Finkle\u2019s “Alive and Well,” playing at the Old Globe through April 25, is a formulaic romantic comedy that strives unsuccessfully to deliver a meaningful message about our divided country. It\u2019s as if someone along the road to its co-world production (Virginia Stage Company and The Old Globe) decided such a message, tacked on at the 11th hour, would make the piece relevant beyond its obvious entertainment quotient. The situation is fun. The actors are attractive and loaded with opposites-attract chemistry. The writing is glib and funny in a Yankee meets yokel way. Big city writer Carla Keenan is on assignment in Virginia. Her guide is Civil War re-enactor Zachariah Clemenson, clad in rebel mufti. Fetchingly, she wears a Union army uniform as the two set out on her objective: to find the “ghost of the lonesome soldier” that\u2019s been seen around these parts, and write a story about him. Zachariah, for whom the Civil War never ended, explains the sightings thus: “The people of this region have invented their own Sasquatch.” He insists that Carla can never write her story properly unless they walk 100 miles to Appomattox, where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered. Carla insists she\u2019d rather rent a car and sleep in hotels with Internet connections and free breakfasts. Zachariah will have none of it: she must walk in the shoes of a soldier, eat hardtack and drink moonshine. She is tough; he is tender though implacable, and soldier she does, hardtack and moonshine too. The inevitable happens: sexual if not intellectual attraction grows while Zachariah guides Clara, unharmed, out the other side of her challenges, which include his broken compass and a violent storm. Kelly McAndrew and James Knight are delightful as the ill-suited couple. They seem to relish performing this mindless fluff; their improbable pairing is like the Beverly Hillbilly meets college-educated, smartass Vanity Fair writer. As she declares at the outset, Carla is never wrong and never apologizes. Zachariah is equally stubborn. It\u2019s a perfect setup for a war and a throwback to once-popular battle of the sexes film and television. It\u2019s as if Finckle purposefully wrote a play that would appeal to theatergoers of a certain age, who will have an enjoyable evening despite their better judgment. New York director Jeremy Dobrish zestfully stages “Alive and Well” with fine period feel. Robin Roberts\u2019 set is facile and Shelly Williams\u2019 costumes are appropriately stressed and sweat-stained. Michael Gottlieb is lighting designer and Paul Peterson is responsible for sound. “Alive and Well” continues at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; and 7 p.m. Sundays through April 25 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, Old Globe, Balboa Park, $29-$62, www.theoldglobe.org or (619) 23-GLOBE.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kenny Finkle\u2019s “Alive and Well,” playing at the Old Globe through April 25, is a formulaic romantic comedy that strives unsuccessfully to deliver a meaningful message about our divided country. It\u2019s as if someone along the road to its co-world production (Virginia Stage Company and The Old Globe) decided such a message, tacked on at […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"\u2018Alive and Well\u2019 provides a Civil War battleground (of the sexes)","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}