Big things really do come in small packages, particularly if you're sitting in Danville's Village Theatre, watching Role Players Ensemble tame a theatrical giant to fit on its small stage.

This company has done the same with playwrights from O'Neill to Gilbert and Sullivan, and now Role Players is presenting Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker," a great, big comedy, done in the Swiss Army Knife style Role Players uses so effectively.

"Matchmaker," to remind you, is the play upon which "Hello Dolly!" is based, and it's typically mounted as lavishly as the musical. Here, though, the sets by Robert Bo Gordon are smallish and wonderfully representational, allowing the show to concentrate more on the hilarious zoo of delightful characters than the spectacle.

And it works well under Eric Fraisher Hayes' direction of a top-notch cast. John Blytt beautifully plays Horace Vandergelder, the hay, feed and hardware king of Yonkers, N.Y. He runs his place like a little kingdom, taking full ownership of all he surveys, including employees, family and strangers, all of whom he orders about with a near-gleeful abandon.

He can't quite tame Dolly Levi (Melynda Kiring), the town's all-purpose busybody and matchmaker, who decides today is the day she and Horace will go to town to meet his match -- milliner Irene Molloy (well played by Laura Melton).

And then, everyone decides to head for New York -- Horace's niece, Ermengarde (Monica Ammerman) runs away from her uncle to perhaps elope with artist/fiancee Ambrose Kemper (Ben Day). They are zany and over-dramatic every time they talk, adding a well-wrought bit of slapstick to the play.

Horace's two employees, Barnaby (Dallas Carter) and Cornelius (Mark Frazier), also head for New York to have a huge adventure that won't end until they've done a whole lot, including kiss a girl, who turns out to be Mrs. Molloy, aided by her hat-shop employee, Minnie Fay (the hugely funny Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer).

This all happens in the first act and seems to take less time than the telling here. But it basically lights the ticking time bomb you know is going to explode all over Horace before the show is over.

And, it does, but only after a wild and funny romp around 1900s New York, much mixed identity, some conniving, but mainly a fast-paced unfolding of the story that, as it turns out, was well-established during the first act.

As such, the beginning, although leavened by slapstick and Wilder's wonderful lines, plays a bit slowly as so much information is laid down.

Moments later, though, all heck breaks loose, and the show races hysterically to the finish.

It is during this headlong rush you realize how clever Golden's set really is. The minimal number of set pieces deployed leaves plenty of room to run as well as just enough to hide behind, and the cast uses it all to full effect.

Contact Pat Craig at


By Thornton Wilder, presented by Role Players Ensemble

Through: Feb. 8.
Where: Village Theatre, 233 Front St., Danville
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Tickets: $20-$25;