‘Be My Baby’ needs changing

This is a Baby that could be tossed out with the bath water.

Onstage in Bedford’s regional premiere of Ken Ludwig’s Be My Baby, which opened Friday, has a ton of problems that begin with an unexpectedly weak script.

This play, which is neither a comedy nor a drama, tells the preposterous story of a young couple in Scotland, Gloria (Stephanie Campbell) and Christy (Zac Loera), who sort of want to adopt the baby of an American relative in the late 1950s. Circumstances prevent them from going to the States themselves, so they send a pair of older relatives who serve as their wards, John (Scott Bardin) and Maude (Sherri Small), to take care of the matter.

The problem is that the blustery Scotsman John and the stuffy Brit Maude can’t stand one another. But they embark on their errand all the same, and their efforts on these shores do not go as planned. The conclusion is so “shocking” that only the entire audience can see it coming about five minutes into the show.

The source of most of this production’s faults are the script. Its comedic parts are not funny, and you never care enough about its characters to be drawn into its dramatic moments. The structure is also a challenge because it has so many scene changes. Director Rose Anne Holman moves this production through those frequent transitions with all the grace and style of a ballerina with a broken leg.

There are also fatal flaws in the performances. Bardin has to be forgiven for the rough edges of his generally solid portrayal of John. The actor originally cast in the role had to drop out for health reasons, and Bardin stepped in so recently that, at the Saturday performance seen for this review, he still had a script in his hand during the second act.

But there is no excuse for the work of the actresses in this show. Small and Campbell both appear to be fundamentally sound performers. But their accents are weak and employed randomly. That is crucial because there is a Scottish vs. English thing going on with the story that needs good accents to have an impact. The gentlemen of the cast fare much better in that area. But the female characters are completely undermined by the unevenness of their deliveries.

The only true survivor in this show is Michael E. Spencer, who plays a variety of small roles. He remains consistent within each character, which allows him to distinguish them well. Loera also escapes largely unscathed because his part is relatively small.

This production is further damaged by a dark, dreary and illogical set by Kevin Brown. The only bits of color offered are in the form of some designs painted on the floor. But they can be seen only when patrons are walking by the stage on their way in or out. They are not visible once you are seated.

While Ludwig shoulders most of the blame for this show’s failings, Holman must be held accountable for many of the failures of this particular production. She does nothing to smooth out the lurching gate and deadly pace of this play, which clocks in at two hours and 15 minutes while feeling much longer.

The here-one-second-and-gone-the-next accents of Small and Campbell are as much her fault as the actresses’. She also fails to rein in some of the out-of-bounds work by Lana K. Hoover, who is a highly experienced and accomplished thespian, as a variety of female characters.

So there are plenty of fingers to be pointed in this production that sure didn’t need the extra obstacle of a last-minute actor replacement. It is a show that emphatically proves that not all babies are cute.

This story was originally published January 30, 2017 at 4:03 PM with the headline "‘Be My Baby’ needs changing."