A weekly program focusing on the arts and entertainment

They're sending in the clowns, among other things, at the Riverside Community Players theater and the results are not bad at all. That's according to Arts and Entertainment Editor Bob Sokolsky.

They're not great either, also according to Sokolsky. But, he adds, the overall balance is on the plus side and that is no small accomplishment for a show that checks in with a number of challenges for its cast. Adapted from the 1955 Ingmar Bergman movie "Smiles of a Summer Night," the musical deals with a group of frivolous people dropping into a glamorous weekend home for a set of disastrously planned romantic escapades.

It takes a while, Sokolsky says, for director Merrilee Drake's cast members to bring all that together, but when they do everything moves along in entertaining fashion.

Mel Chadwick and Beverly Baird are singled out for particular praise for their portrayals of two middle-aged lovers suddenly realizing their feelings for each other. Sokolsky also gives special applause to Peter Romero and Susan Bray.

They don't erase all the flaws in this production, he says, but they head a competent company that does "most of the right things' most of the time.