from the C-T again...
--BG
by Tim Reid, take 5 correspondent
published November 30, 2007 12:15 am
FLAT ROCK — The Christmas Phantom threatens to ruin “A Tuna Christmas” in the hilarious sequel to “A Greater Tuna” by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard.
Veteran Flat Rock comic actors Scott Treadway and Michael Edwards play all 22 characters as Texas’ “third-smallest” town prepares its annual Christmas decorating contest.
Vera Carp has won the contest 14 years in a row but faces strong competition from upstarts like Tasty-Crème waitresses Inita Goodwin and Helen Bedd. And no one is safe from the mysterious phantom, who wrecks somebody’s yard decorations each year.
Radio station personalities Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie provide a running dialogue on Tuna’s Christmas preparations, interspersed with commercials by Didi Snavely, owner of Didi’s Used Weapons.
A touching drama plays out as Bertha Bumiller struggles to have a traditional Christmas with her family. This is complicated by the fact that her trucker husband is absent as usual, her son Stanley is almost certain to go back to jail, and her daughter Charlene has a crush on gay theater director Joe Bob Lipsey.
Treadway and Edwards are awesome as they deftly switch characters, keeping up the frantic pace that gives the play its punch. The humor is wild, the satire on small-town life is revealing, and the laughs are nonstop.
It has been three years since Flat Rock last presented “A Greater Tuna.” Judging from the spontaneous standing ovation given Treadway and Edwards for this go-around, which is directed by Betsy Bisson, Texas’ third-smallest town has lost none of its appeal.
Tim Reid reviews theater for the Citizen-Times. Contact him at timreid4@charter.net.
30 November 2007
Flat Rock's Tuna
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1 comment:
I recently came across a blog called wnctheatre.livejournal.com and was delighted to find some reviews of local shows. I have no idea who the blogger is or how to get in touch, so for now I'm posting these without permission. If anyone knows the blogger, please check and see if they mind!
Bernhard Grier--
Heard about it for years, finally saw it. Flat Rock Playhouse’s holiday cash-cow, Tuna Christmas, by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams, and Ed Howard, starred the fabulous Scott Treadway and Michael Edwards. Both actors are fantastic, playing something like 22 roles of various ages and genders between the two of them. With a nod to the quality in comedies I find perhaps most appealing (found in the greats like Christopher Guest's films), the madcap over-the-top-ness (mm English) of the characters is well-balanced by the truth, sympathy, and simple humanity brought to them by the actors. We get the belly laughs, but we also get the poignancy. I will say the show itself started to drag (no pun intended) a little bit for me, I think due to my limited tolerance of “people from the south are different and funny” and “that man is in a dress” type humor. Or maybe I was just distracted and overwhelmed by the sea of holiday sweaters in the audience.
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