How sweet will success be in 'As Bees in Honey Drown'?

TAMPA

In the first scene of As Bees in Honey Drown, we meet a young author getting his first taste of fame and finding that it may not be what he had mind.

With his first novel recently published, Eric Wyler is posing for a magazine. He envisions himself in a cardigan, maybe smoking a Meerschaum. The photographer orders him to take his shirt off and pose provocatively.

It's Wyler's whirl of experiences with nascent celebrity and potential fortune that form the spine of As Bees in Honey Drown, Douglas Carter Beane's disturbing but ultimately very entertaining play.

Stageworks provides a terrific production directed by Karla Hartley. Besides a fine six-person cast (four in multiple roles), highlights are a beautifully appointed contemporary set by Scott Cooper and Harley's lively and evocative sound design.

Stageworks regulars will recall last year's production of another Beane play, The Little Dog Laughed. The two works share some themes, and both feature Beane's smart, crisp dialogue. But they're very different in tone. Bees is much lighter and funnier, and more dramatically effective, more substantial and more intellectually provocative.

After that photo shoot, the author (played by Nick Horan) comes to the attention of a fast-talking, name-dropping show biz big shot (Heather Krueger) who picks him to write a screenplay about her life. She promises him the world, and he believes her, though at first he's interested only in the paycheck.

But he becomes seduced by her promises and her money, and by the time he finds out that she's not all she claims to be, he's inextricably involved.

That realization comes to the author at the start of Act Two. One of the neat things about Beane's script is that the audience, not blinded by the bright lights of nascent fame, starts to suspect what's happening much sooner.

Fine acting abounds, and Slake Counts is especially impressive as one of the big shot's former associates (one of two roles Counts plays). One of the most pleasing aspects of the production is the hilarious but wicked performance by Krueger. She's a regular in the frothy revues next door at the Jaeb Theatre, and it's heartening to watch her take on a role that allows her to stretch her acting chops.

The play has some problems, including a couple of nonsensical plot points, and Sunday's matinee was blemished by some technical mishaps. A cupboard door kept swinging open through the first act, and an actor banged into it during an exit and let out a little yelp of pain; a loud sound cue came up a few seconds early in the second act.

People who love theater tend to enjoy occasional glitches, because there's some delight in watching the cast deal with them gracefully, which this cast did. Casual theatergoers may be annoyed by those mistakes, but the strengths of the script and the production will render their annoyance negligible.