Each short scene seems to occupy its own circumscribed and ridiculous universe. Nonetheless, the individual portrayals the two-member cast etches so vividly tend to dominate. Playwrights Jaston Williams, Ed Howard and Joe Sears have threaded aspects of two dozen characters' lives through one another, so a kind of narrative skein emerges that stands out much more in Act 2 than in Act 1. The show that tourists crane necks to see at Munich's New Town Hall. Continuity was partly assured by patches of offstage dialogue, yet the split-second slides from one character to the next owed much to this assistance as well as the actors' adroitness. That crucial team took a well-deserved curtain call, having helped the co-stars manage wig and garb changes. Main thing on the positive side: Stockberger and Curry managed wholeheartedly the rapidly shifting parade of characterizations, aided by four dressing assistants. Okay, that personal cringing is out of the way. And I'm entertaining the possibility that I've just insulted rocks. Frankly, with the dubious exception of some vengeful scheming by Tuna's juvenile delinquent, the town's residents are dumb as rocks. "Greater Tuna" occasioned much discomfort on that score.īertha (Eddie Curry) upbraids Charlene (Jeff Stockberger).įramed by claustrophobically folksy broadcasts from the local radio station, with its puny wattage in the high three figures, "Greater Tuna" presents a series of mostly noisy, often bizarre characters who rarely stray into intelligence. Urban for almost my whole life, I may appear oddly ill-at-ease about the dismissal urbanites often direct toward America in the boondocks. It's difficult to put aside the play's barrage of comic barbs directed at small-town life, particularly with conventionally benighted Texas as the exclusive target. Seen Saturday night at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre, "Greater Tuna" winds down the farcical elements to a couple of virtuoso displays in the realm of caricature, handled with energetic abandon by B&B favorites Jeff Stockberger and Eddie Curry. It feels like a narrowing in ambition, scope, and humanity from the company's counterpart at the turn of last year, the somewhat perplexing but captivating murder-mystery-comedy "Shear Madness."
Townsladies Vera and Pearl look down witheringly on the deceased Judge.
It's tempting to read into the production of "Greater Tuna" on the cusp of the New Year a politically
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