Friends and Neighbors

There’s something about con artist stories that is inherently entertaining. The constant balancing act that comes with having to keep lies straight – or reform them on the fly – is irresistible to watch, and the charisma needed to pull off such deceptions almost always makes the central characters in these stories fun to follow. You find yourself rooting for them to succeed, even when their victims are being fleeced or defrauded to the tune of millions.

Catch Me If You Can tells the story of Frank Abignail, a con man so larger-than-life that even his autobiography that served as the source material for this musical (by way of the 2002 Steven Spielberg film) turned out to be significantly made up. Throughout the musical, Frank (Ty Butler) tells his own story of being a teen from a troubled family who learned the tricks of con artistry early on from a father (Jeff Kirchoff) who is constantly trying to outrun his own responsibilities. When his parents get divorced, Frank decides to run away and make it on his own, supporting himself through check fraud before moving on to bigger things, namely posing as a Pan Am pilot and eventually also a doctor, choosing careers seemingly only because he likes being surrounded by girls.

Enormous credit must be given to Ty Butler for his wonderful performance here – he must be on stage for nearly 80% of the runtime, and he doesn’t slip for a second. He captures Frank Abignail’s intelligence, wit, and most significantly, his youth. Never once in this show do you forget that Frank is just a kid, and he’s doing what he’s doing in a naive attempt to get his parents back together. As Frank Sr Jeff Kirchoff also gives a very strong performance as a man whose entire life is seemingly a performance. He always seems to be working on one hustle or another, even if it’s one he’s playing on himself. The scenes where Frank and his father periodically meet up over the course of the show are heartbreaking as you see Frank Sr beam with pride at his son’s fraud when we know he could at any moment tell his son to stop and get himself out of peril.

That peril comes largely in the form of Carl Hanratty, an FBI agent who catches Frank’s case and is tasked with tracking him down. Patrick Sieve’s performance as a professional stick-in-the-mud is so effective I initially thought his acting was stiff, but soon realized it was all part of his character, and by the time Sieve gets his own musical number with “Breakin’ the Rules” he’s become as vivacious and entertaining a presence in the show as Frank himself.

Hanratty isn’t merely a Javert figure here – as the show progresses and he and Frank meet through a series of near misses, he starts to become a secondary father figure to Frank. This gets underlined in a second act musical number between him and Frank Sr where they both sing about their difficult relationships with their own parents and how it brought them to their current path. This is one of several second act numbers that feels like it’s slowing down the show. In general, Donna Magnusson’s direction in the second act feel less exciting than the high-energy of the first. In a way, this makes sense, as Frank is no longer constantly moving as he works a new con. He’s actually trying to get out of the life and settle down with a nurse (Sophie Hwang) he met while posing as a doctor. Their love story is sweet, and Hwang’s performance is lovely, but the whole subplot is dramatically undercut as you realize it won’t go anywhere because Frank simply can’t stop lying.

Technically, this may be the most accomplished show I’ve seen at the Andria thus far. Some occasional mic issues aside, the presentation was excellent. The set by Greg Bohl is simple – one large piece representing an airport terminal is on center stage as other props and pieces get moved on and off as needed. The rest of the various settings are provided by Holly Wallerich’s projections, which are very effectively handled – underlying the mood without calling attention to themselves. The choreography sometimes feels like it could be tighter or more energetic, but I can understand why that might be an issue when working with such a large ensemble.

Overall, Catch Me If You Can is a wonderfully entertaining musical with strong performances throughout, a perfect capstone to the Andrea’s 25-26 season.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN runs at the Andria Theatre through May 10th