As someone who has watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” many a time in my day, I am mildly familiar Jimmy Stewart’s work, and thus, although having never seen the movie “Harvey”, was excited to attend Williamsburg Players’ production involving that famous tall rabbit.  (Don’t tell anyone, but just a couple hours before the show, I may have been confusing one big rabbit movie with another, and thought we were seeing something much more terrifying, i.e. “Donnie Darko”.  I was relieved – to say the least – when informed of my error.)

If you don’t know the film, “Harvey” is about one very kind man, Elwood P. Dowd, and his very tall, very astute, gossiper of a best friend, Harvey.  It just so happens that Harvey is in fact… a white rabbit.  It turns out, people other than Elwood have trouble accepting Harvey and his bunny-ness – and that leads to Elwood’s sister Veta (played by the hysterical Rachel Bender) and niece Myrtle Mae (as far as I’m aware, no relation to my brother-in-law’s cats, Poppy Mae and Pinkie Mae – who have quite the mythical backstory too long for this parenthetical – played by William & Mary senior Katie Oles) trying to have Elwood committed to a mental institution.  That mental institution has a staff chock-full of personality, from Jahi Mendes’s no-nonsense orderly Duane Wilson, to Mark Glickstein’s famous but reclusive Dr. Chumley, to the in-a-relationship-but-not Dr. Sanderson (Sam Miller) and Nurse Kelly (Amy McCluskey).  (Our one major gripe about this show is that the Sanderson/Kelly dynamic is uncomfortable at times, and downright sexist at others – we think a good twenty minute re-write of most all of the lines for and around Nurse Kelly by the right modern-day comedian would do a lot of good – but McCluskey and Miller do quite well with what they are given).  In addition, Kevin Clauberg does a nice job as Dowd family lawyer Judge Gaffney, and we found Moe Cunningham’s portrayal of Betty Chumley to be endearing and left wishing she had more lines.

But this show revolves around Elwood – a role which John Cauthen absolutely thrives in.  We didn’t think Cauthen could possibly top his performance in “Something Rotten” earlier this season, but this might do the trick.  Cauthen smiles like a schoolboy, exudes the kindness of Mr. Rogers, demonstrates the wisdom of a sage and the spirit of Jim Henson, and just has a way of delivering a line that is perfect for this role.  So much of the dialogue of this show is reliant on timing and inflection in delivery – both for comedic effect and for the development of this naïve yet wise character that is Elwood P. Dowd – and Cauthen absolutely nails it, cracking the audience up with lines as clever as his addition to a conversation about the shock of being born “that’s the one we never get over” to the simple, but (and you’ll have to take my word for it) equally laughter-inducing “where has the evening gone?” 

Cauthen really resonates with the spirit of Elwood – and oh, by the way, also somehow plays off of Harvey perfectly, from little body movements and expressions in Harvey’s direction, to the way he delivers Harvey’s constant stream of “little news items”.  The clever, fast-moving dialogue is performed on a set which niftily spins from a library scene to a waiting area in a doctor’s office and back again.  Keep a look out for the painting of Elwood and Harvey, a hilarious and wonderful prop which I would be proud to hang on my mantle if I were a Dowd. 

Watching this show, I was reminded of one of my favorite movie quotes, from P.T. Barnum in “The Greatest Showman” – “Men have suffered more from imagining too little than too much.”  You can’t help but leave this show agreeing with that sentiment, and being reminded to choose kindness.  Oh, and at our awards show this year – feel free to take our card (and remember the words of Elwood – “if you need to call, use this number, not that one.  That’s the old one…” although unlike Elwood, there is just an email address on our card).