Sparkling `Barefoot' Doesn't Stub Its Toe

Barefoot in the Park by Neil Simon. Produced by the Enter Act Theatre, 12912 432 Ave. S.E., North Bend. Thursdays through Saturdays through May 25. ------------------------------------------------------------ -- NORTH BEND If it weren't for the bright yellow reader board in the parking lot exclaiming "Barefoot in the Park," the Enter Act Theatre would be just a little gray grange hall hardly noticed on the main road east out of North Bend.

But you can't miss that sign, and you shouldn't miss this sparkling entertainment.

For those unfamiliar with the premise, the play is story of the six-day old marriage of Corrie and Paul Bratter. Corrie, engagingly played by Lisa Fredrickson, is a sweet but hyperactive free spirit, madly in love with Paul, the fifth-floor walk-up she's compulsively rented in 1967 Greenwich Village and all the loopy neighbors that come with it. She's particularly taken with the charming but eccentric Victor Velasco, played as a hedonistic Santa by Wes Taylor, who lives upstairs and often gets to his rooftop flat unannounced through the Bratter's minuscule bedroom.

Paul Bratter, on the other hand, is a wide-eyed stuffed shirt. A fledging Ivy League lawyer whose new bride's antics have him bewitched, bothered and ultimately bonkers. Desperately staid and conservative, he has much more in common with Corrie's mother Mrs. Banks, a shy widow from New Jersey whose daughter has always been a handful-and-a-half.

Justin Budig, in his first major theatrical part as Paul, makes a deft, funny transition from understated to over-the-top, and Becky Rappin's Mrs. Banks is a discombobulated delight - smart, savvy, wry, confused and funny all at once. Marshall Brisendine as the Telephone Repair Man and Harry Charowsky as the Delivery Man also add nicely to the comic confusion, all of which takes place in David Moore's convincingly claustrophobic one-unit set.

This is the third season for EAT - the hungry anagram for the group. The community company began with local playwright Marilyn Healea's historical musical "Snoqualmie Prairie" presented as part of the 1989 Washington centennial in Olympia. The production eventually moved to North Bend's Sallah Grange Hall where the company has also staged "The Life and Death of Sneaky Fitch," "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," "Century Snooze," "Eat, Drink and be Murdered" and "Dracula." Each of the professionally mounted productions has been well-received. As Healea happily says: "We're in the black. We're solvent!"

EAT is as much a family as a community effort. Healea's husband Max is company treasurer, on the board and behind the scenes. Telephone Repair Man Brisendine also serves as Production Manager. His wife Linda is the stage manager, plus a writer and director for the Children's Theater. She credits their daughter Jill with getting the family actively involved. "She's 12 years old and already has an agent. She's a real trooper." The Brisendines add that most of the involvement is voluntary and that everyone really gets along. "We work well together.

Everyone involved credits director Marie Ruzicka with giving the production it's first-rate crackle and snap.

"She really worked us hard." says Fredrickson. "She wouldn't let up on us. Sometimes it got really frustrating. But then the day before we opened, it all fell into place. I knew my part and could just play with it. It turned out great."